Taking the learning of Latin from grammar charts and translation to communicative and comprehensible.
After a rather rough year (2017-2018 school year), where I felt I was doing all the “right” things to teach the Latin to the students, nevertheless, the students weren’t learning. No one, they or I, was having fun. Each day was a struggle. The “right” things I had been doing since forever (2005-2006 school year) were no longer working. I wasn’t enjoying my time teaching and the students were definitely not enjoying their time learning.
A fix was needed. I began looking for help. Where? Where else these days? The Internet. And what I found was Comprehensible Input. I’ll be honest, I’d heard the buzzword before. I knew some principles of the concept. I knew that someone, somewhere was doing it with Latin. But, that’s about all I knew. I still don’t know all that much about it, but I’m learning. And, as I learn more about it, though I’m not completely 100% sold on the “best practice” of it, I am loving more and more of what I learn and implement in the class. As well, I’m seeing a lot of my students again find joy in the Latin language, find it an easy and natural language to learn, and we are both wanting to come to class.
So, what follows is my journey of what I have tried in class, what worked, what didn’t, what I changed or will change, what I have borrowed from others, and my reflection on this entire Comprehensible Input thing.
For starters, a list of resources (websites, blogs, persons, etc.) that I have found generally useful along my journey:
Pomegranate Beginnings at http://pomegranatebeginnings.blogspot.com/
Legonium at http://www.legonium.com/
Magister Craft at https://www.magistercraft.com/
Todally Comprehensible Latin at http://todallycomprehensiblelatin.blogspot.com/
Magister P at https://magisterp.com/
John P. Piazza, M.D. at http://johnpiazza.net/
Latin Best Practices at https://latinbestpracticescir.wordpress.com/
Comprehensible Antiquity at https://comprehensibleantiquity.com
Dinosaurs Speak Latin 