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This is something I hear about; it's something I experience. Usually, it's nothing we can make a big difference in the year it's happening (to a certain extent). This is when I start brainstorming about what the problems are and how to diminish the same problems the next year. I also try to fix what I can this year.
I teach from CLC. At this time of year as well as anticipating what the rest of the semester will be like, here are the problems:
Latin 1: noun-adj agreement, (or ever having learned Nom, Dat, and Acc cases), relative pronouns
Latin 2: how to tell the UT clauses apart; what the heck subjunctives are; (lacking) full understanding and appreciation of participles
Latin 3: present subjunctives vs future vs present indicative; infinitives (all sorts) in indirect discourse.
The other thing in general why students seem to lose it 2nd semester is that they aren't retaining what they were supposed to learn 1st semester and thus are frustrated and start to tune out. For your average kid, language learning takes lots of repetition and reinforcement. I always try to listen carefully to Latin 2 students at the beginning of the year to understand what stuck and what didn't. For instance, I use model sentences of my own design to help aide in learning NOM, DAT, & ACC endings and don't switch to a complete noun chart until GEN and ABL are added near the end of the year.
My model sentences are as follows:
NOM DAT ACC VERB
ancilla puellae statuam dat.
ancillae puellis statuas dant.
dominus servo anulum dabat.
domini servis anulos dabant.
mater* patri infantem dedit.
matres patribus infantes dederunt.
I line the words up in columns. The advantages of starting with something like this is that the students have a framework/a context in which to understand the endings. The slavegirl gives a statue to the girl. Function is apparent with the sentence, endings still line up in a useful fashion. The sentence pattern, NOM + DAT + ACC + Verb is often a common one in CLC at this point (plus it does show up in "real" Latin and is a useful pattern). (Hmmm.... I should write another entry about sentence patterns and why I like them in CLC.)
ANYWAY. Over the years I've found these sentence really helpful. However, I've had Latin 2 students telling me that they never got the sentences. We don't really use them after we start truly declining nouns, except in discussing sentence patterns.
So, where do I go wrong? What could help?
Obviously I didn't hammer in nearly enough why they are useful and how to use them. I didn't hammer in that it wasn't about the WORDS but about the endings. So this year with the Latin 1's now that we're into Unit 2 (several stages into knowing all three cases), we still SAY the whole sentences, but I only write out the endings on the board while we say them. In this way students are able to focus on the critical information. We review constantly how to remember the cases (and also the sentence pattern) -- Never (nom) Date (dat) A (acc) Vegetarian (verb), the fact that they are lined up singular plural singular plural, etc. So right now before we start doing the assigned warm-up:
N D A V
-------------------------
-a -ae -am -t
-ae -is -as -nt
--------------------------
-us -o -um -t
-i -is -os -nt
---------------------------
-* -i -em -t
-es -ibus -es -nt
Honestly, each year I use these model sentences, and I've been using them for a dozen years now, I find more benefits from them. First, I like having the SENTENCES for context. Once we start these in stage 9, this pattern is used again and again throughout the text (not to mention showing up in real Latin), and it helps students to see the pattern. Second, when we drop it down to just endings visually but keep saying the sentences that are able to MAINTAIN the connection that words and endings are integrated. Inflectional languages are such a different concept to kids.
This week, after we chanted out the sentences & wrote the endings on the board but before we went any further, we talked about how nouns and adjectives agree--and I gave a few simple examples like amici boni or discipulam laetam. First students said that their endings matched up. We stared at the chart some more and talked about what that meant. We finally teased out the concepts of CASE, NUMBER & GENDER. It was a good discussion and helped them to see for themselves.
Anyway, afterwards we METAPHRASED noun/adjective pairs as a unit. By Latin 2 they will be metaphrasing whole participial phrases. That is, I gave them word pairs like the following: (These come from "Rufilla" p 30--the story they were going to be reading later on.)
The metaphrasing sentence only has NOM DAT ACC VERB => Someone verbed something to someone. (That is, we haven't learned genitives and thus they aren't an option.)
1) optimum maritum
2) duae ornatrices
3) multas amicas
4) matronae Romanae (2 ways)
And they would write:
1) Someone verbed the best husband to someone.
2) The 2 hairdressers verbed something to someone.
3) Someone verbed many girlfriends.
4) The Roman ladies verbed something to someone.
OR Someone verbed something to the Roman lady.
We discussed 2 and 4 at length. With #2 we talked about 1st and 3rd declension words being able to go together, that most importantly they must line up in the same column (for case). With #4 we discussed the importance of context and word order. Yes, in the future it will change and be more pliable, but it will NEVER be random (and anyone who thinks that really doesn't understand Latin literature). Currently the patterns we are seeing with Datives are as an indirect object, with special verbs like credit and favet, and most recently with phrases like difficile est mihi (dative) + infinitive.
Such warm-ups (followed by vocab drill) get their brains ready for the story we will b reading.
Anyway, I've been working on writing this on and off (more off than on) for several days, and since it's just a blog I'm going to let it ramble. The main point I want to make is that repetition, even if you are sure they should know their endings or whatever you are working on, really helps. Some students just don't get how important learning endings are until very late in the year. Keep cycling back and adding on. Students give up 2nd semester because they feel like there's no way to catch up and learn what they were supposed to have gotten by now. If you can keep reviewing in manner that covers the old stuff while adding the new, it becomes far more doable.
Metaphrasing in the simplistic way I do it (I know that University of Michigan folks get into more detail) has improved my own reading dramatically over the last few years. It's one of my favorite tools in my toolbox, and it is really very helpful in getting students to understand structure without resorting to grammatical terminology every time (like direct object vs indirect object, etc).
More thoughts on Latin 2 and 3 next, I think.
I teach from CLC. At this time of year as well as anticipating what the rest of the semester will be like, here are the problems:
Latin 1: noun-adj agreement, (or ever having learned Nom, Dat, and Acc cases), relative pronouns
Latin 2: how to tell the UT clauses apart; what the heck subjunctives are; (lacking) full understanding and appreciation of participles
Latin 3: present subjunctives vs future vs present indicative; infinitives (all sorts) in indirect discourse.
The other thing in general why students seem to lose it 2nd semester is that they aren't retaining what they were supposed to learn 1st semester and thus are frustrated and start to tune out. For your average kid, language learning takes lots of repetition and reinforcement. I always try to listen carefully to Latin 2 students at the beginning of the year to understand what stuck and what didn't. For instance, I use model sentences of my own design to help aide in learning NOM, DAT, & ACC endings and don't switch to a complete noun chart until GEN and ABL are added near the end of the year.
My model sentences are as follows:
NOM DAT ACC VERB
ancilla puellae statuam dat.
ancillae puellis statuas dant.
dominus servo anulum dabat.
domini servis anulos dabant.
mater* patri infantem dedit.
matres patribus infantes dederunt.
I line the words up in columns. The advantages of starting with something like this is that the students have a framework/a context in which to understand the endings. The slavegirl gives a statue to the girl. Function is apparent with the sentence, endings still line up in a useful fashion. The sentence pattern, NOM + DAT + ACC + Verb is often a common one in CLC at this point (plus it does show up in "real" Latin and is a useful pattern). (Hmmm.... I should write another entry about sentence patterns and why I like them in CLC.)
ANYWAY. Over the years I've found these sentence really helpful. However, I've had Latin 2 students telling me that they never got the sentences. We don't really use them after we start truly declining nouns, except in discussing sentence patterns.
So, where do I go wrong? What could help?
Obviously I didn't hammer in nearly enough why they are useful and how to use them. I didn't hammer in that it wasn't about the WORDS but about the endings. So this year with the Latin 1's now that we're into Unit 2 (several stages into knowing all three cases), we still SAY the whole sentences, but I only write out the endings on the board while we say them. In this way students are able to focus on the critical information. We review constantly how to remember the cases (and also the sentence pattern) -- Never (nom) Date (dat) A (acc) Vegetarian (verb), the fact that they are lined up singular plural singular plural, etc. So right now before we start doing the assigned warm-up:
N D A V
-------------------------
-a -ae -am -t
-ae -is -as -nt
--------------------------
-us -o -um -t
-i -is -os -nt
---------------------------
-* -i -em -t
-es -ibus -es -nt
Honestly, each year I use these model sentences, and I've been using them for a dozen years now, I find more benefits from them. First, I like having the SENTENCES for context. Once we start these in stage 9, this pattern is used again and again throughout the text (not to mention showing up in real Latin), and it helps students to see the pattern. Second, when we drop it down to just endings visually but keep saying the sentences that are able to MAINTAIN the connection that words and endings are integrated. Inflectional languages are such a different concept to kids.
This week, after we chanted out the sentences & wrote the endings on the board but before we went any further, we talked about how nouns and adjectives agree--and I gave a few simple examples like amici boni or discipulam laetam. First students said that their endings matched up. We stared at the chart some more and talked about what that meant. We finally teased out the concepts of CASE, NUMBER & GENDER. It was a good discussion and helped them to see for themselves.
Anyway, afterwards we METAPHRASED noun/adjective pairs as a unit. By Latin 2 they will be metaphrasing whole participial phrases. That is, I gave them word pairs like the following: (These come from "Rufilla" p 30--the story they were going to be reading later on.)
The metaphrasing sentence only has NOM DAT ACC VERB => Someone verbed something to someone. (That is, we haven't learned genitives and thus they aren't an option.)
1) optimum maritum
2) duae ornatrices
3) multas amicas
4) matronae Romanae (2 ways)
And they would write:
1) Someone verbed the best husband to someone.
2) The 2 hairdressers verbed something to someone.
3) Someone verbed many girlfriends.
4) The Roman ladies verbed something to someone.
OR Someone verbed something to the Roman lady.
We discussed 2 and 4 at length. With #2 we talked about 1st and 3rd declension words being able to go together, that most importantly they must line up in the same column (for case). With #4 we discussed the importance of context and word order. Yes, in the future it will change and be more pliable, but it will NEVER be random (and anyone who thinks that really doesn't understand Latin literature). Currently the patterns we are seeing with Datives are as an indirect object, with special verbs like credit and favet, and most recently with phrases like difficile est mihi (dative) + infinitive.
Such warm-ups (followed by vocab drill) get their brains ready for the story we will b reading.
Anyway, I've been working on writing this on and off (more off than on) for several days, and since it's just a blog I'm going to let it ramble. The main point I want to make is that repetition, even if you are sure they should know their endings or whatever you are working on, really helps. Some students just don't get how important learning endings are until very late in the year. Keep cycling back and adding on. Students give up 2nd semester because they feel like there's no way to catch up and learn what they were supposed to have gotten by now. If you can keep reviewing in manner that covers the old stuff while adding the new, it becomes far more doable.
Metaphrasing in the simplistic way I do it (I know that University of Michigan folks get into more detail) has improved my own reading dramatically over the last few years. It's one of my favorite tools in my toolbox, and it is really very helpful in getting students to understand structure without resorting to grammatical terminology every time (like direct object vs indirect object, etc).
More thoughts on Latin 2 and 3 next, I think.
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