Despite the obvious physical barrier, teaching CI online is not very different from the brick and mortar setting (e.g. use words students know, establish meaning of new ones, talk about compelling things, don’t force speech too early, etc.). The format for online teaching, however, typically involves an element of asynchronous “independent work” that most closely resembles traditional drill and worksheet exercises, which we know does very little, if anything for language acquisition.
Teaching with Compelling CI
A New Grading System: The last one you’ll ever need (once you’re ready)
**Updated Expectations Rubric**
This grading system is the result of my experience combining common weighted grading categories (e.g. Homework, Unit Tests, Quizzes, etc.) with Standards Based Grading (SBG), and a Classroom Management (adaptation of Robert Patrick’s D.E.A.). Despite overall positive outcomes, the combination had its drawbacks. Besides, the longer I teach, 1) the less explicit instruction I give, and 2) the more streamlined/simple my practices become. From what I’ve learned from veteran teachers, this is a normal progression for a teacher, but I seem to have skipped about 10 years of trial and error. This new grading system is extremely easy to use as a teacher and extremely clear to understand as a student.
Acquisition Rates: Thinking we have control
I made a silly decision at the start of last year. While the expression for “my name is” in Latin comes out as “nōmen mihi est” (lit. name for me is), I really, really wanted to introduce students to adjective agreement early. As such, I chose “nōmen meum est” (lit. name my is). Results? My students still have adjective agreement issues, which is normal, but there’s more. Sadly, they also don’t know “mihi” very well, which is a much more frequent and useful word.
Non-Targeted Input: Ditching a Lesson Plan
Since I began teaching a language, it’s been pretty hard letting go of the graduate school generic UbyD planning mindset, and spending less time working on administrator-desired posted Objectives (see Terry Waltz’s answer for this). These and various other educational processes sap our time that otherwise should be spent on honing our craft, and really, really getting to know our students and their needs. The hardest, but perhaps most fruitful thing to let go is the Lesson Plan, and just discuss something non-targeted in Latin. I know, it sounds crazy, right? Read on…
How I was WRONG about “practicing” a language.
Despite holding a B.A. in Classics, it wasn’t too long ago that I failed to read Latin with any remote sense of fluency. I’m not being self-destructive either, that’s just an accurate statement. This is unsurprising since my experience was mostly translation-based (just like nearly every other Classical language learner), and we had very little time to read anything, much less for enjoyment. That all changed in 2010 when I stumbled upon Oerberg’s Lingua Latīna, the Latin textbook written entirely in Latin. I vividly remember exclaiming to Ken Kitchell about how I had just read more Latin in those 35 chapters over the course of a month than I did with him over the course of my entire undergraduate study! I hope he was not offended. Is Lingua Latīna high-level literature? No, but my translation speed of the classical canon wasn’t exactly anything to tout, either. So if Lingua Latīna wasn’t the best work of Golden Age Latin literature, what was it?
Latin and Teaching Latin
This website has mostly been dedicated to my work with Latin rhythms. Although I consider using them to be the most underrated practice to engage students, things-metrical take up a small portion of my classes.
For the past year, I’ve increasingly devoted my time to researching the TEACHING of Latin. When I’ve compiled enough info, and am confident in my practices, I will alter the course of this site more towards pedagogy and less towards theory. Topics will likely include:
– Standards-Based Grading
– Proficiency Scales (the END of the zero, and 100-point grading scale)
– Comprehensible Input (CI)
– Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS)
– Practical uses of meter in the classroom (ie. “lesson plans” for the rhythmically-challenged)
Magister P. 