Creating Wonder in Students for Latin

Latin can easily become a subject of drudgery and boredom for students. A teacher may only have thirty to forty-five minutes to teach a Latin lesson packed with vocabulary and grammar rules. Forty-five minutes barely gives a teacher time to make sure each student has each vocabulary word memorized and each chant internalized, but it's important to try to do a little extra at the beginning of class to give each student a sense of wonderment towards Latin.

One great way to exact wonderment from your students is by reading a few lines of Latin from an interesting piece of literature. Read it out loud several times. Get your students accustomed to hearing the Latin words. Read it slowly then read it fast. Read it loud and read it in a whisper. It's helpful to pick passages that have Latin words which have similarities to English or Spanish words. Stop on those familiar words and eye your students. Say, "What does that word sound like?"
The result will be that each students' eyes will widen and they will possibly be more attentive during class.

One passage I love to use with my students (I did this last week.) is a silly passage from Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis translated by Peter Needham. Even if your students have little Latin knowledge they know the characters from Harry Potter:

Dudley magno cum sonitu coepit lacrimare. Non vero lacrimabat, multos iam annos non vero lacrimaverat, sed sciebat si vultu contorto ululatum emisisset, matrem sibi daturam esse quidquid vellet.

'Dinky Duddidule, ne lacrimaveris, Matercula non ei permittet perdere diem tuum festivum!' clamavit, bracchiis eum amplexa. (pg 18)

Dudley with a great noise began to cry. Not really was he crying, for many years now he did not really cry, but he knew if he sent out a cry with his face twisted, he would get whatever his mother gave to him. 'My Dinky Dudley, do not cry, your little mother does not allow your festival day to be ruined because of him (Harry)!" she shouted, having held him in her arms.

The difficult thing about employing this way to create wonder and excitement for Latin is that one has to read lots of Latin in order to pick out wonderful passages like this. So read as much as possible! 

Teaching Latin to Third Graders

I've been teaching at Immanuel Lutheran School for one month now and I have tweaked so many things just within a month: discipline, order of the day, procedures...the list goes on. I just wanted to share a few things that I decided to do differently with teaching Latin to third graders.
Repetition is very important when teaching third grade and so applying this to Latin is essential. In the mornings we used to go over only the memory verse for the week but now we also go over the Latin chants as well. This gives them extra Latin practice even if they don't have Latin class on that specific day.
This brings me to another important element of Latin: Chants and more Chants! Latin is the language of music and so a Latin paradigm (such as the first declension noun endings) can become easy to memorize when it has a "sing-songy" element to it. Young students also love chanting. They memorize through chanting and singing with great ease.

I am using the Latin for Children Primer A textbooks and from using these in past years I have found that some chapters should be learned before others. For instance I have my students learn Chapter 4 before Chapter 3 because Chapter 3 is heavy on grammar. They need to learn the "-a, -ae, -ae" chant before they can learn the noun jobs for the different cases. Through a year or so of experience I have found it's better to teach them the meat of something first and then add the seasoning later. The meat being the memorization part of Latin (chants and vocabulary) and the seasoning being Latin grammar.

Paenitens Fur

Puer qui docuerat fraudare ab matre adolevit adultus et erat publicus. Unam diem comprehensus est fraudans et damnatus demori. Dum ambulandus ad effectum adiit matrem et dixit:

“Ecce tuum laborem! Si non fraudare docueras, hoc sufferam.”

“Equidem,” dixit mater, “qui, te oro, docuit te comprehenderi?”

Moralitas: Tu duces tua membra.

Lupus et Agnus

Agnus consecutus ab Lupo fugit in templum.

Lupus dixit sacerdotem te capere immolareque si ibi manes.

Agnus dixit esse tam bonum immolari ab sacerdotibus tamquam masticari ab te.

Meum amicum,  acutum esse mihi videre te agitantem tantam interrogationem ab solo importuno conspectu. Non esse tamquam bonum mihi.

Moralitas: Cum aspexit cum duobus infortuniis, delegit alterum quod favit maximo hoste minor.

Bonus Miles et Malus

The Tale of the Two Soldiers

Bonus miles Romam matrem grandem curat et tenet in animo res graves. Malus bibit tantum vinum purum nocte ut de nihil mane cogitat. Bonus miles arma exterget expolitque. Malus arma obsolescere patitur. Bonus suam uxorem amat. Malus ad feminas noctis ardet, sed odit suam matrem.
Eheu! Caput cognoscet malum militem et mallet cognoscere bonum, qui vigilat.
Bonus mortem gloriosam in bello habebit et malus effluebit.


Help:
obsolescere - (derivative: obsolete) to go out of use, decay
expolitque - (-que ending means "and") polishes
effluebit - e/ex + fluo = flow away = be forgotten

Why do you think the leader pays more attention to the Malus?

Notice how at the end Malus gets one verb to describe him, but Bonus gets a grand description.

Mater is used twice! Where?

Cicero and the Benches

I've recently been keeping up with my Latin by reading Cicero's Second Speech Against Catiline and it has reminded me how one cannot get the same feeling, which Cicero wanted the Senate to see, when his speech is read in English. So much more meaning and irony bleeds through when you read it in the Latin. Here's an excerpt for you to translate. My humble translation and notes are below the excerpt. Cicero brings me such joy (although I must admit that sometimes he reminds of Obama)!

Hesterno die, Quirites, cum domi meae paene interfectus essem, senatum in aedem Iovis Statoris convocavi, rem omnem ad patres conscriptos detuli: quo cum Catilina venisset, quis eum senator appellavit? quis salutavit? quis denique ita aspexit ut perditum civem, ac non potius ut importunissimum hostem? quin etiam principes eius ordinis partem illam subselliorum, ad quam ille accesserat, nudam atque inanem reliquerunt.

Hesterno die - yesterday
interfectus essem - subjunctive with "cum" to denote time
ut - as

Literary Love: Notice that in the last sentence (and one can only do this in Latin) "nudam atque inanem" agrees with "partem illam subselliorum" but the Latin listener would hear "ille accesserat" before "nudam atque inanem." He wants everyone in the room to feel that not only the benches/seats are empty but also Catiline himself. His "principes" have abandoned him. Don't you just love the bluntness of the great Latin rhetor!

My translation (even though it seems a little choppy, I believe a more "to the letter" translation is better.):
Yesterday, Quirites, when I almost had been murdered in my own house, I called together the senate in the temple of Stator Jove, I reported all this to the conscript fathers: whither he had come with Catiline, which senator called out to him? Who hailed him? Who finally thus looked at him as a destructive citizen, and not rather as a most unbridled enemy? Nay more even the princes of his order (interesting choice of words) abandoned that part of the benches - naked and also empty - towards which that guy had ascended (perhaps Cicero pointed theatrically in Catiline's direction). 

P.S. - If anyone would like for me to write some fun little stories in Latin just let me know!

Puto de Natura

Puto de Natura

This little story reminds me of some poems by Vergil. It's a bit pastoral.

In colle clamor est mortuus et audio carmen de natura. Est hiems sed exspecto carmen vivum. Puella dormit et puer cantat ad eam. Arbores cantabunt ad stellas et luna. Est hiems sed colles cantabant ad me et te. Puto de natura et gaudeo. Est hiems sed viri carmina feminarum in aura audiunt. Etiam Vergil audit clamorem beatum et caela gaudent. Est hiems sed natura carminis est calor.

Glossary

Eam: pronoun; meaning “her”

Etiam: even

Calor: warmth