This year I’m trying to teach by spoken Latin in my high school classroom. ‘Comprehensible Input’ is a methodology based in 2nd language acquisition theory, which builds up student understanding of the language in the language, using strategic questioning in Latin and repetition. I notice that when I attempt to deliver even a portion of class in Latin that students focus in, listen better, and better retain new vocabulary. What is behind the success of spoken Latin? Should we consider it simply a tool or best practice? If this methodology motivates students to learn the language, why has it been so overlooked historically?
At first, I thought it must have to do with our age of instantaneous communications by text and email. Social media provides instant satisfaction to communicating: friends respond quickly to posts and you have the feeling of instant success at communication. The following article from MIT News may provide at least one clue, its subtitle: Trying Harder Makes it More Difficult to Learn Language. The article discusses a current study that show how cognitive “effort” at learning are at odds with language acquisition, much more than previously known. I am wondering if Latin spoken in the classroom may provide the same kind of satisfaction as when students receive messages.
There are implications for our field, ever recreating itself in perpetuum while running with the times. We should not only align our teaching goals to current curriculum but ask whether our lessons are meeting real student needs for communicative goals. Since the 60s and Stephen Krashen, pioneer of 2nd language acquisition theory, defined the “affective filter” an emotional impediment to learning language such as anxiety, self-doubt, or boredom. I’m convinced that methodologies which includes comprehensible input in Latin from the instructor, is one step in the direction of matching our students’ needs for authentic and meaningful communication.
These days I think about how to personalize my topic of the day in Latin to my students. I try to observe students’ interests and ask them in Latin about their I interests, leading to authentic goals in communication. I am imagining, for example, that students will learn prepositions better by giving directions in Latin. I need to rethink what I’ve always taken for granted about teaching Latin vocabulary and grammar, and now try to become more helpful to students sorting out a complex task of communicating. While I’m new at teaching partially in Latin, I feel that the strategies of ‘Comprehensible Input’ provide a complement to reading both textbooks and ancient texts.
