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I just posted this on Latinteach:
> >Not everyone may have that interest and if we require
> >everyone to be prepared for AP some may drop out of their Latin programs.
>People who are teaching at the lower levels need to be able to read Latin
just as well as those at the higher levels. They need just as much, if not
more preparation, to teach effectively. There are some great stories from
the Aeneid and from Ovid, for example, that beginning students can really
get into. I don't think that we can call a person who hasn't read enough of
this literature prepared to teach. How do you get a great feel for how
Romans thought without reading what they considered to be their greatest
works of literature?
(my response:)
I do agree with this. This is not to say that people who are not interested in teaching AP can't teach lower level Latin effectively, they can. I know they can. I know some who do.
But I also believe deep in my heart that you eye should always be on the goal--literature. And I feel to a certain extent that we are hypocrits to promote teaching Latin if we don't try to read some real stuff on our own as well as with our lowest level classes. Why are we teaching Latin, after all, if not to read what the ancients wrote? Improved SAT scores and written skills are biproducts, not the goal. If we don't have reading the original as our goal, then let's just teach the ancients in translation. It would be much easier.
I acted as a consultant year before last for an inservice and when the teachers heard that a *middle* school teacher was coming, their first thought was WHAT could they POSSIBLY learn from a middle school teacher? And this unfortunate view of middle school teachers is possibly because some middle school teachers do not have their eye on the AP/real lit goal.
I have even heard complaints over the years from professors who have been frustrated by the inability of their incoming Latin students to pronounce Latin correctly. That because of the games, gimmicks and songs we sometimes use to teach conjugations, for instance, that students permanently chant words with the accent on the wrong syllable. And once again, I think the fault is not one of intention, but of not looking at what's ahead.
For instance, school has begun in many places--how many of you taught pronunciation? syllabification? accentuation? Why not? Too difficult?
Ok, fair enough. Most of my 7th graders really didn't get it, even though I had fairly thorough worksheets, though some did. My 8th graders were better, but then they've heard the language for a year already. But I've vowed to teach it every year at the beginning of the year, even if I teach high school later on. Every year will start with it. Why? BECAUSE WHEN THEY GET TO THE AENEID I WANT THEM TO ENJOY METER.
I don't want them to just be able to scan a line. That's mechanics. I want them TO FEEL THE LINE! I want them to FEEL the waves churning and the sea serpents striking and the people fleeing.
When teachers tell me they prefer an Vergil text with no macrons because that's what helps them to teach students how to recognize cases, I think they are missing the whole point of reading Latin! It is a LANGUAGE! You should be treating it like a puzzle so you can decide whether a vowel should be long or short.
When I teach reading theory--how to read from left to right and not hunt the verb--it's with those long prose sentences in mind, the ones that terrified me in college, the ones that still raise my blood pressure a bit now. I keep thinking if I teach students to read from left to right NOW while the sentences are SHORT, then as the sentences keep getting longer and longer, they will build up their skill gradually. I don't want students to hit real Latin prose with its lengthy sentences and throw their hands in the air and run away screaming. It shouldn't be that way and it doesn't have to be that way.
Learning how to read from left to right after you've already taken 3 or 4 years of Latin means you have to start ALL OVER and reteach yourself on how to approach Latin. What work!
Someday I want to teach somewhere where I can take kids from Latin 1 to Latin literature. Right now I get emails from former students who ask me about a sentence they are stuck on and I am disappointed that they've already forgotten their reading skills. Their high school teacher doesn't use them so they don't even think to use them and thus they start missing things and getting confused as the sentences get longer.
And I suppose I'm digressing.
My point is that to produce really brilliant students (or to hope to), you have to plan for what they will need 4 years from now on their 1st day. I think our teacher preparation needs to include considerable time spent on how to teach students to read from left to right, and that that particular skill should be taught from the beginning when the sentences are 4 words long. In fact, I think there should be a 1 hour reading lab the moment a college student declares a major in Latin so that the student has a much needed useful skill developed as soon as possible which he/she will then see is worth incorporating into teaching later on. Critical even.
You don't have to want to teach AP Latin or high literature, but you really need to always be thinking about it in the back of your mind. We're teaching Latin to read Latin.
> >Not everyone may have that interest and if we require
> >everyone to be prepared for AP some may drop out of their Latin programs.
>People who are teaching at the lower levels need to be able to read Latin
just as well as those at the higher levels. They need just as much, if not
more preparation, to teach effectively. There are some great stories from
the Aeneid and from Ovid, for example, that beginning students can really
get into. I don't think that we can call a person who hasn't read enough of
this literature prepared to teach. How do you get a great feel for how
Romans thought without reading what they considered to be their greatest
works of literature?
(my response:)
I do agree with this. This is not to say that people who are not interested in teaching AP can't teach lower level Latin effectively, they can. I know they can. I know some who do.
But I also believe deep in my heart that you eye should always be on the goal--literature. And I feel to a certain extent that we are hypocrits to promote teaching Latin if we don't try to read some real stuff on our own as well as with our lowest level classes. Why are we teaching Latin, after all, if not to read what the ancients wrote? Improved SAT scores and written skills are biproducts, not the goal. If we don't have reading the original as our goal, then let's just teach the ancients in translation. It would be much easier.
I acted as a consultant year before last for an inservice and when the teachers heard that a *middle* school teacher was coming, their first thought was WHAT could they POSSIBLY learn from a middle school teacher? And this unfortunate view of middle school teachers is possibly because some middle school teachers do not have their eye on the AP/real lit goal.
I have even heard complaints over the years from professors who have been frustrated by the inability of their incoming Latin students to pronounce Latin correctly. That because of the games, gimmicks and songs we sometimes use to teach conjugations, for instance, that students permanently chant words with the accent on the wrong syllable. And once again, I think the fault is not one of intention, but of not looking at what's ahead.
For instance, school has begun in many places--how many of you taught pronunciation? syllabification? accentuation? Why not? Too difficult?
Ok, fair enough. Most of my 7th graders really didn't get it, even though I had fairly thorough worksheets, though some did. My 8th graders were better, but then they've heard the language for a year already. But I've vowed to teach it every year at the beginning of the year, even if I teach high school later on. Every year will start with it. Why? BECAUSE WHEN THEY GET TO THE AENEID I WANT THEM TO ENJOY METER.
I don't want them to just be able to scan a line. That's mechanics. I want them TO FEEL THE LINE! I want them to FEEL the waves churning and the sea serpents striking and the people fleeing.
When teachers tell me they prefer an Vergil text with no macrons because that's what helps them to teach students how to recognize cases, I think they are missing the whole point of reading Latin! It is a LANGUAGE! You should be treating it like a puzzle so you can decide whether a vowel should be long or short.
When I teach reading theory--how to read from left to right and not hunt the verb--it's with those long prose sentences in mind, the ones that terrified me in college, the ones that still raise my blood pressure a bit now. I keep thinking if I teach students to read from left to right NOW while the sentences are SHORT, then as the sentences keep getting longer and longer, they will build up their skill gradually. I don't want students to hit real Latin prose with its lengthy sentences and throw their hands in the air and run away screaming. It shouldn't be that way and it doesn't have to be that way.
Learning how to read from left to right after you've already taken 3 or 4 years of Latin means you have to start ALL OVER and reteach yourself on how to approach Latin. What work!
Someday I want to teach somewhere where I can take kids from Latin 1 to Latin literature. Right now I get emails from former students who ask me about a sentence they are stuck on and I am disappointed that they've already forgotten their reading skills. Their high school teacher doesn't use them so they don't even think to use them and thus they start missing things and getting confused as the sentences get longer.
And I suppose I'm digressing.
My point is that to produce really brilliant students (or to hope to), you have to plan for what they will need 4 years from now on their 1st day. I think our teacher preparation needs to include considerable time spent on how to teach students to read from left to right, and that that particular skill should be taught from the beginning when the sentences are 4 words long. In fact, I think there should be a 1 hour reading lab the moment a college student declares a major in Latin so that the student has a much needed useful skill developed as soon as possible which he/she will then see is worth incorporating into teaching later on. Critical even.
You don't have to want to teach AP Latin or high literature, but you really need to always be thinking about it in the back of your mind. We're teaching Latin to read Latin.
