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I have spent the better part of this weekend not grading quizzes as I should be but buidling a new set of quia.com online quizzes for reviewing and understanding Ablatives of Description, Comparison, and Respect. During this time I'm watching friends post from the Living Latin Institute put on by Paideia in NY and feeling not only a little jealous but admittedly a bit defensive about what I've been working on.
But I'm not currently teaching via Comprehensible Input, I'm using the Cambridge Latin Course and focusing, as I have done for a long time, on reading strategies. The two are not, of course, exclusive. In fact, I am looking for ways to bring the two together in the future. And it may one day be that I will be totally CI in my approach, but for now, I'm a CLC girl.
CLC often gets complaints about not having enough grammar, but truly it's all there. Sometimes it is discussed in the ABOUT THE LANGUAGE sections, but other times it isn't. Sometimes it is discussed in the LANGUAGE INFORMATION section in the back of the book, sometimes it isn't. In the case of the Ablatives of Description, Comparison, and Respect, one can find very minimal information of them in the back of the book. One doesn't get a sense of how often one sees them in the text. Certainly the students have no idea about what they are seeing. CLC would like students to discover patterns for themselves and/or to internalize new constructions after having experienced them multiple times.
However, there are times when the examples are spread out to just a few here or a few there. Sometimes explanations aren't really needed. But there does come a time when students start feeling that there are hundreds of exceptions to how to translate or understand something. And while I often feel more problems are caused by worrying about what would sound "right" in an English translation which could be avoided if we kept our focus IN the Latin, we have to understand the situation from the student's point of view. That is, sometimes it is worth pointing out exactly what is going on grammatically, especially if we can back it up with multiple examples. And when we start hitting ablatives that sound better translated with things other than "by" or "with" (the two standby's we learn with declining), to me that is the time to point out the new guys.
I give tests every couple of stages, for the most part, and usually pull together samples just from those stages of whatever needs targetting. In this case, I decided we needed a closer look at Ablatives of Description, Comparison, and Respect. Combined together I was able to make two 18 question online quizzes regarding identifying the construction and translating. (They use the same 18 sentences in each.) While it may seem to the student and other users of these two new quia.com quizzes that I'm merely hammering home grammatical features, what I really am trying to do is to force students to read and reread these examples more times than we would have met them just in class. In class I can count on them seeing the constructions in full context with their work groups (three people each) a couple of times, plus one more time when we go over it again all together in class. That's maybe three times, four if I'm lucky. With the online quizzes, which I end up using to prep and preview for tests, I hope to force them to see these same sentences at least 2 more times, more if they review them again on their own time at home. I doubt more than 4 or 5 questions will actually make it to the test. After all, Stages 36 and 37 cover present subjunctives and more on indirect statements--big ticket items. But sometimes it is frustration with the smaller items that can put off students, especially when examples are spread out and one feels you are learning something new each time it comes up. Hence the need for repetition in context with similar items to focus and engage the students.
So here are the two new items.
1. CLC Stages 36-37: Identifying Ablatives
2. CLC Stages 36-37: Translating Ablatives
Unit Four isn't to be feared; it's to be mined for its wonderful depth of information. Join me in embracing it.
But I'm not currently teaching via Comprehensible Input, I'm using the Cambridge Latin Course and focusing, as I have done for a long time, on reading strategies. The two are not, of course, exclusive. In fact, I am looking for ways to bring the two together in the future. And it may one day be that I will be totally CI in my approach, but for now, I'm a CLC girl.
CLC often gets complaints about not having enough grammar, but truly it's all there. Sometimes it is discussed in the ABOUT THE LANGUAGE sections, but other times it isn't. Sometimes it is discussed in the LANGUAGE INFORMATION section in the back of the book, sometimes it isn't. In the case of the Ablatives of Description, Comparison, and Respect, one can find very minimal information of them in the back of the book. One doesn't get a sense of how often one sees them in the text. Certainly the students have no idea about what they are seeing. CLC would like students to discover patterns for themselves and/or to internalize new constructions after having experienced them multiple times.
However, there are times when the examples are spread out to just a few here or a few there. Sometimes explanations aren't really needed. But there does come a time when students start feeling that there are hundreds of exceptions to how to translate or understand something. And while I often feel more problems are caused by worrying about what would sound "right" in an English translation which could be avoided if we kept our focus IN the Latin, we have to understand the situation from the student's point of view. That is, sometimes it is worth pointing out exactly what is going on grammatically, especially if we can back it up with multiple examples. And when we start hitting ablatives that sound better translated with things other than "by" or "with" (the two standby's we learn with declining), to me that is the time to point out the new guys.
I give tests every couple of stages, for the most part, and usually pull together samples just from those stages of whatever needs targetting. In this case, I decided we needed a closer look at Ablatives of Description, Comparison, and Respect. Combined together I was able to make two 18 question online quizzes regarding identifying the construction and translating. (They use the same 18 sentences in each.) While it may seem to the student and other users of these two new quia.com quizzes that I'm merely hammering home grammatical features, what I really am trying to do is to force students to read and reread these examples more times than we would have met them just in class. In class I can count on them seeing the constructions in full context with their work groups (three people each) a couple of times, plus one more time when we go over it again all together in class. That's maybe three times, four if I'm lucky. With the online quizzes, which I end up using to prep and preview for tests, I hope to force them to see these same sentences at least 2 more times, more if they review them again on their own time at home. I doubt more than 4 or 5 questions will actually make it to the test. After all, Stages 36 and 37 cover present subjunctives and more on indirect statements--big ticket items. But sometimes it is frustration with the smaller items that can put off students, especially when examples are spread out and one feels you are learning something new each time it comes up. Hence the need for repetition in context with similar items to focus and engage the students.
So here are the two new items.
1. CLC Stages 36-37: Identifying Ablatives
2. CLC Stages 36-37: Translating Ablatives
Unit Four isn't to be feared; it's to be mined for its wonderful depth of information. Join me in embracing it.
