Feedback Requested!

I’ve got another collective brainpower request.

I continue to try to find ways to make teaching Latin easier on students than what most textbooks do, and I’ve got a draft of a lesson I’d like y’all’s thoughts on.

The teaching strategy the lesson uses is giving you a familiar (or somewhat familiar) text: Scripture. As you read, Latin words begin to be introduced into the text, with notes explaining the words, grammar, and pronunciation as you go. Over time, as the student learns, more and more of the text will be Latin, until eventually almost the whole text will be straight Neo-Vulgate. As the student encounters common words over and over again, the repetition will help fix them in his memory.

HERE’S THE LESSON.

I’d appreciate it if y’all (especially non-Latin speakers) would read it and tell me in the comments box whether you think this would be a productive teaching technique to use and whether you might be interested in using this technique yourself.

Suggestions for improvements are also welcome, though bear in mind that this is only a draft I banged out in a few minutes last night, so there are lots of quibbles that could be made with it (e.g., have I explained the pronunciation in the best way?, does it need a better font color or typeface?). Those are things that would be fixed in the tweaking/editing stage, but suggestions about tweaking the methodology itself would be most welcome.

For example, it would be possible to keep the basic method the same but rearrange the information in a more student-friendly format. E.g., having the English-Latin text across the top of a page (I’m thinking fo a printed page here) and having a single vocabulary list and set of grammar notes below it. Arranging the info that way might (or might not) be easier on the student–which is my primary concern.

FOR COMPARISON PURPOSES, HERE’S A MOCK-UP OF FORMATTING THE SAME DATA THE OTHER WAY.

Much obliged, folks!

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

13 thoughts on “Feedback Requested!”

  1. Jimmy!!! Awesome. Way cool. I liked the second one better than the first. Suggestions on formattting/presentation…
    Maybe have both English and Latin translations for comparison.
    Take the pronounciations and the grammar and make them into parallel columns so that you don’t have a big white space on the left.
    Put the questions back in, below the grammar section.
    Put the Latin only back in at the very bottom like you did in the first presentation.
    Would read like this…
    English, width of the page.
    ——————————–
    Latin, width of the page.
    ——————————–
    Pronounciations, 2 columns
    ——————————–
    Grammar rules, 2 columns
    ——————————–
    Questions, either format
    ——————————–
    Latin only, width of page
    What do you think?

  2. Hehe, I liked the first better than the second. I mostly, just like the linge by line analysis and breaking up the learning of vocabulary and grammar rules line by line and then seeing the full text again at the end.

  3. I was always told that an interlinear hindered learning Greek.
    Is there an analogous function in this proposed method?
    Mind you, I’m not sure of the truth of what I was told – they were into memorizing parts of speech and treating literature like a computer program, which isn’t how language works.

  4. I much preferred the first version to the second. The line by line breakdown was more useful to me as I did not have to continually refer far down the vocabulary list.
    I read the 2nd example first. I had a lot of difficuly keeping my place in the text as I referred to the vocabulary in example 2. (The fact that the text is in the latin order also through me off.) In the first example, the text was broken into single line sections, so I didn’t lose my place, and I think this made the vocabulary easier to retain.
    Repeating the text at the end of the first example was VERY useful.
    –Werner

  5. First of all, this is great! While the second format was easier to look up the vocabulary I found the rules easier to follow in the first format. In either case this is awesome. It reminds me of how they introduced Japanese in the mini-series Shogun.

  6. I like the new way quite a bit. You could have appendices that contain the vocabulary and the grammar rules for quick reference.
    After your lesson I easily read the scripture — but I’ve always had a facility for languages. I’ll run it by my husband and 14-year-old son to see what they think.
    Are you preparing this for publication (Web or book)? If so, I really would like a copy (for pay is fine, of course). My son would like to learn Latin and his high school doesn’t offer it.

  7. This is very promising. There is a real market for an accessible introduction to Latin.
    For what it’s worth, I think the first format is better than the second.

  8. Bush is an idiot who got us in an unjust war. Listen to the pope and not the bishops who covered up the sex scandal.

  10. Perhaps he is likening Bush to corrupt Roman emperors, thus drawing a sly analogy and tying it in to the Latin oeuvre. Or perhaps he is an idiot.
    By the way, I liked the first format better. Nice idea.

  11. There are a lot of people at my Newman Center who are learning Latin and they would love this. Are further lessons going to be available? If you say yes, I’ll tell all of them about it, because they would all like Scripture to read (at their level), and right now all they’re getting is the made-up stories in “Ecce Romani.”

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