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This was just on Latinteach. I thought I'd include it here:
>Playing Devil's advocate here, since the original speakers of Latin
>didn't think in terms of cases or paradigms, just as speakers of Russian
>with its 6 cases don't think in terms of cases, would it be possible to
>learn Latin without conscious awareness of cases?
I think the problem here--and it is one I run into--is that we don't teach alone. My student might end up and a colleague's classroom; yours might end up in mine, etc.
The reason why, I think, we persist with noun ending charts is that it is a convenient and precise way to organize the data. It is in its own way an international language. To go without the noun chart altogether--to go without teaching cases altogether--might be possible if you were the sole teacher for that student's education.
I have done a disservice, I fear, to one of my students who is now at a different school because I really don't even mention the noun chart until they are 8th graders and have been exposed to all of the endings. Ok, they have seen it. Their color coded model sentence sheet does have a matching noun chart. But we don't decline like that.
I am beginning to think that after the final exam this year I will spend several fairly tedious days teaching students how to decline so they will be ready for their future teachers. Most I can tell to just label their sentences we use and then match up the cases and fill in a chart.
And, as I've said before, when it comes down to it, the AP Exam doesn't ask you to decline a noun. It WILL ask you about a case and why that case is used, but it doesn't ask you anything artificial like declining.
But we decline because it is a universal way of discussing the morphology of nouns. I can't help but wonder as we begin to push new methods of teaching Latin via reading texts and immersion (Orberg) whether we will find some of these charts as tedious and archaic as people in the 1800s found Latin--that is, Latin died out as the international language. Will the noun chart go that same way?
Ok ok ok, probably not. :)
But as long as Pat was being the devil's advocate, I thought I'd join in.
>Playing Devil's advocate here, since the original speakers of Latin
>didn't think in terms of cases or paradigms, just as speakers of Russian
>with its 6 cases don't think in terms of cases, would it be possible to
>learn Latin without conscious awareness of cases?
I think the problem here--and it is one I run into--is that we don't teach alone. My student might end up and a colleague's classroom; yours might end up in mine, etc.
The reason why, I think, we persist with noun ending charts is that it is a convenient and precise way to organize the data. It is in its own way an international language. To go without the noun chart altogether--to go without teaching cases altogether--might be possible if you were the sole teacher for that student's education.
I have done a disservice, I fear, to one of my students who is now at a different school because I really don't even mention the noun chart until they are 8th graders and have been exposed to all of the endings. Ok, they have seen it. Their color coded model sentence sheet does have a matching noun chart. But we don't decline like that.
I am beginning to think that after the final exam this year I will spend several fairly tedious days teaching students how to decline so they will be ready for their future teachers. Most I can tell to just label their sentences we use and then match up the cases and fill in a chart.
And, as I've said before, when it comes down to it, the AP Exam doesn't ask you to decline a noun. It WILL ask you about a case and why that case is used, but it doesn't ask you anything artificial like declining.
But we decline because it is a universal way of discussing the morphology of nouns. I can't help but wonder as we begin to push new methods of teaching Latin via reading texts and immersion (Orberg) whether we will find some of these charts as tedious and archaic as people in the 1800s found Latin--that is, Latin died out as the international language. Will the noun chart go that same way?
Ok ok ok, probably not. :)
But as long as Pat was being the devil's advocate, I thought I'd join in.
