LINGVA LATINA PER SE ILLVSTRATA
Advice to the Teacher
Before starting to read a new chapter the students should study the heading picture or map. Through a brief discussion in their own language the teacher may help them to observe important details and to familiarize themselves with the theme or the setting, without entering upon the actual content of the text. In any case the preliminary discussion, if practiced, will not take more than a few minutes.
In the presentation of the text itself only Latin should be used. The object is to accustom the students, from the start, to reading and understanding the Latin text as Latin without the interference – or with a minimum interference – of their mother tongue. Begin by asking them to read a short passage silently. Then the teacher will read the passage aloud – or play an audio recording – possibly making the whole class or (later) individual students echo each sentence. If the reading is done carefully, with correct pronunciation and appropriate accentuation and grouping of words, the students will find to their satisfaction that they can understand the text immediately and will feel no need to translate. Pronunciation will be taught by encouraging the students to imitate their teacher – or the recording.
When listening to (and repeating) the sentences, the students should have their books open before them, or have the pages displayed on transparencies or on a computer screen, so that they can see the written words at the same time.
It is important for the teacher, when first presenting the text, to know exactly what words and what grammatical forms and structures are new to the students (there is a list of new words in the margin at the end of each chapter). The self-explanatory text assures that the meaning of every new word and the function of every new grammatical form can be understood from the context, but a lively presentation, with suggestive intonation and gesturing and with frequent reference to visual aids, will always be a great help to the students. Their spontaneous response will generally be sufficient to show that they have grasped everything, while on the other hand an occasional puzzled look or failure to respond will reveal difficulties. In such cases, and whenever you want to be on the safe side, you can make the meaning clear by repeating one or two sentences emphasizing the word or form in question, or by illustrating the point with further examples or drawings.
After a passage has been presented in this way, the students may be asked to take turns to read parts of the passage aloud in a manner that shows understanding through correct phrasing and accentuation. If the passage contains dialogue, parts can be assigned to different students (the teacher or a student can act as narrator). This is one way of checking the students’ comprehension of the text. But to make quite sure that the passage has been precisely understood and assimilated, various other procedures must be used.
First of all you can ask simple questions in Latin concerning the content of the passage just studied (detailed questions on each lesson can be found in the volume Exercitia Latina I). Some of the questions may be accompanied by the showing of pictures. When answering the questions the students should normally be allowed to keep their books open, so that if necessary they can find the answer in the book (their capacity to spot the right answer shows that they understand the meaning of both question and answer).
If you are still in doubt whether a new word or a new grammatical form has been correctly understood by everybody, you may ask one of the students for a translation. However, if the text is carefully presented with proper emphasis on new features, translation, whether of single words or whole sentences, will generally be felt to be superfluous. Naturally the translations of Latin words and phrases will often be present in the students’ minds, but when reading the text they should be encouraged to concentrate on understanding the Latin directly as it stands instead of searching for modern equivalents. The very fact that they are not asked to translate will help them to such direct understanding, which is a prerequisite for obtaining proficiency in reading and insight into the mechanism of the language and its means of expression.
If you insist on testing comprehension by having students translate or paraphrase the text they have studied, you will find that it is no problem for them to express in their own language what they have already understood directly in Latin.
Most teachers will find it necessary to explain and discuss grammar in the students’ native language in line with the Instructions in the manual Latine Disco. When this is practiced, the students should be encouraged to work out the rules for themselves after they have seen several practical examples of the grammatical forms functioning in meaningful contexts. Such an inductive approach motivates the students by engaging them mentally.
As a further help to observe and learn the grammatical system, each chapter is followed by a grammar section, Grammatica Latina, offering systematically arranged examples of the new points of grammar with the relevant Latin grammatical terms. Since the teacher will probably already have called attention to most of these points, the study of this section need not take up much time.
The chapters of Lingva Latina are so long that they will have to be divided into several lessons. The division into lessons (lectiones) shown in the margin by roman numerals (i, ii, iii) is intended as a guide for the teacher, but more than one period will be needed for some of the lessons. However, in the interest of promoting the reading skill the teacher should not make the readings too short. In the exercise book Exercitia Latina I you will find comprehensive exercises practicing all the new grammar and vocabulary presented in each lesson. These exercises can be answered orally in class – or on the computer (a CD-ROM Exercitia Latina I is available).
The three Pensa at the end of each chapter are contextual exercises constituting a final test of the students’ comprehension of the material taught in the whole chapter. After studying both the main text and the Grammatica Latina section, the students are required to fill in grammatical endings in Pensum A and new words in Pensum B (special Pensa forms with blanks to be filled in are provided). If you have the CD-ROM Familia Romana at your disposal, the Pensa can be solved, and corrected, on the computer. The questions in Pensum C are to be answered with complete Latin sentences, but if this has already been done orally in class, written answers need not be given. If these exercises are completed satisfactorily (with at least 90% correct answers), this is the best guarantee that the whole chapter, with its new grammar and vocabulary, has been understood and assimilated by the students.
In spite of careful reviewing students will, as they progress in their reading, come across some words whose meaning they have forgotten. In most cases the teacher can help a student out by giving an example of the word used in an easy context which clarifies the meaning; but the students can also find the meaning for themselves by consulting the Index vocabulorum at the end of the book. The teacher will show the students, when they have read one or two chapters, how they can use the reference to chapter and line to find the passage where the word occurs for the first time in a context which will generally be sufficient to make the meaning clear. (This is more rewarding than looking up the word in the Latin-vernacular vocabulary.) In a similar way the treatment of grammatical points can be retrieved from the Index grammaticus (pp. 326-327).
The organization of the Lingva Latina text secures direct understanding of vocabulary and grammar from the context, i.e. by contextual induction. The mental effort required is a motivating factor which gives the students self-confidence and develops their faculties of observation and reasoning. The result is improved learning capacity and increased retention.
Hans H. Ørberg
