implicit grammar

Ginput

/ magisterp / Leave a comment

No, this does not describe a juniper and coriander-based evening. Ginput is Grammar-based Input. Surprise! Yeah, I played this one pretty close to the vest this year. In fact, I began writing this post on June 13th—2019—knowing it would be months until actually implementing and seeing any results from what was last year’s springtime idea.

What’s Ginput?
The idea for Ginput came shortly after one of those frequent grammar debates online fizzled out. I still know that teaching grammar isn’t necessary, and I certainly won’t test grammar knowledge, but I also know that even really compelling things get boring throughout the year! I started wondering if grammar had a role to play, if only as a break from all the compelling stuff, especially since I had no plans to test or grade it. However, a question remained: “could grammar somehow be input-heavy?“

The Search for Grammar-based Input
Providing CI while teaching grammar is rare, so I began to think…“But what if teaching grammar weren’t the entire syllabus?” and “Could I explore Latin grammar with students knowing that our curriculum is based on their interests (i.e. NOT grammar) under a comprehension-based and communicative language teaching (CCLT) approach?” I was certainly onto something, but needed a resource for guidance. Oh wait, I wrote one…

Continue reading →

Sheltering Vocab & Unsheltering Grammar: 2018-19 Stats

/ magisterp / 6 Comments

I’ve had a lot of prep time for a couple years now. How?! Not because of my teaching schedules, but because I constantly streamline practices to ensure I can actually complete my work during the workday. Most of this time is spent typing up class texts for students, as well as researching teaching practices online. Last week, however, I spent waaaaaay too much of that prep time crunching numbers with voyant-tools.org. Here are some insights into the vocab my students were exposed to this year throughout all class texts, and 8 of my novellas (reading over 45,000 total words!). N.B this includes all words read in class except for those appearing in the first 6 capitula of Lingua Latīna Per Sē Illustrāta that we read at the very end of the year. The stats:

  • 550 unique words recycled throughout the year (there were 960 total, but 410 appeared just a handful of times!)
    • 30% came from the first 8 Pisoverse novellas (Rūfus lutulentus through Quīntus et nox horrifica), and not found in class texts.
    • 290 appeared in at least a few forms (i.e. not only 3rd person singular present for verbs, or nominative/accusative for nouns).
  • 2470 different forms of words (grammar!)
    • 45% came from the 8 Pisoverse novellas, not class texts.
Continue reading →