Latin to many people is a dead language, yet it is still taught and used today. There are multiple justifications for the language, but aside from its uses in the SAT’s and other languages, Latin is a really cool language to learn. Its an ancient language! It was spoken clear back in the BC era, how is that not awesome? Yet learning Latin today can be somewhat boring and narrow, not many people are going to strike up a conversation with you, Salve! (Hello!) Quid Agis? (How are you?). No, a Latin student would usually be reading Latin texts, memorizing vocabulary, learning grammar and translating. Many people would not look at Latin and say, hey let’s listen to some Latin music, or read a novel in Latin, but it is possible to do these things in the classroom, you just have to be creative. Communication is the key element in any language, it is the reasoning behind the development of any language, communication does not only include spoken, but also written. So here are some of my own ideas for incorporating a form of audio learning in the Latin classroom.
Speaking and listening activities that you could use are, play a game where you can only speak in Latin Sayings, there are many! This help students in remembering sayings and create an environment where they not only reading, but also speaking and listening to the sayings. Use as many formal statements as possible to create a Latin environment, the teacher or magister could use phrases like: Salvete Discipuli (Hello students), Sedete Discipuli (Sit down students, Surgite Discipuli (Stand up students), Valete Discipuli (Goodbye students). And the students in turn could use the phrases: Salve Magister, Vale Magister (Goodbye teacher). All of these phrases help students get into a Latin mind set and help create the Latin Classroom. Other speaking activities could include reading a play and acting it out in class, reading some poetry out loud, even memorizing the poem. One exercise I remember doing in Latin class was creating our own play and then acting it out, we made up the lines, the characters and the scenes. Everything was in Latin and it not only helped us in speaking, but also in the formation of sentences, especially with dialogue, and listening to what is being said on stage, Our final script had no English so we had to rely on cues and understanding where the story was.
All of these activities help in enforcing speaking, reading aloud and listening. Yet another aspect of Language and culture is music. Singing is a great way for students to remember charts and concepts, my Latin class made up a few jingles to remember a number of different things, for instance we took the declension cases and there English counterparts and sung it to London Bridge. Making jingles and having students sing them for memorization helps them remember better. I remember sitting in class during a test and hearing people humming the jingles. There are also the Latin choirs that sing many religious songs in Latin and would be beneficial for students to hear how Latin has progressed into Ecclesiastical pronunciation, one of my favorite choirs being Adoremus.
Other activities could be students writing short stories or a poem that is fashioned after a famous Roman poet and reading them to the class or a partner. Comprehension will come to them after listening to something multiple times or looking at the actual writing. Yet by combining listening and seeing together like this, students are going to grasp the idea that much more.
If possible, I would try to combine many of these different ideas to help my students grasp and understand different concepts, vocabulary, ideas and culture. The Latin classroom can look like any other language classroom, but maybe with more creative thinking thrown in.
image: http://www.glogster.com/andicarucci/roman-drama/g-6m071bjbaaormlkjt94mna0
Ms. Smith 