Combining Wheelock’s & LLPSI: Weeks 2-3
N.B.:This is the second in my series of post about combining a Grammar-Translation and CI-based approach to teaching Latin in a college classroom. For the introduction to this series, see my previous post.
Overview of Content Covered:
In these two past weeks, we followed LLPSI Cap. II & III :Singular/Plurals, Gender, The genitive, 3rd person present indicative active verbs, and the accusative. I added to this a preliminary introduction to declensions (introducing the concept and examples, basic uses of cases), and 1st/2nd person verbs, which are not included in LLPSI until Cap. XV. For declensions, I assigned explanations from Wheelock’s Ch. 2 and 3. For verbs, I assigned the Grammatica Latina from Cap. XV of LLPSI, since Wheelock’s introduces verbs from different conjugations in an odd, piece-meal way. I have six students, which has been a great number for both individualized instruction and group work.
Parts of Class/Activities in the Past Two Weeks:
These are in rough order of how they might appear in a class, although we did not do each of these activities every day.
Homework Review: This happens at the beginning of class and takes no longer than 5 minutes. I have been giving about 30 minutes of homework each night, and much of that is reading or listening, so we often only have one short exercise to review. I have been using Pensa B and C in LLPSI, select exercises from the Nova Exercitia supplement, or occassionally, exercises of my own creation. These exercises are not always direct indicators of acquisition, but they do make sure that students are gaining practice producing/recognizing specific grammar forms, which they will be expected to do later in the program.
Locutiones/similar spoken activity: for 5 minutes after HW review, I will sometimes do a short spoken activity with the students, usually focused on something not related to the chapter material but about their lives, interests and how they’re doing. This could be discussing weather, asking ut valetis/ut vales, discussing where they’re from, or asking them about their favorite activities. If I have powerpoints already made, it’s very easy to pull them up, or I can simply draw on the board/write up examples of questions and answers (e.g. Rogatum: Ut vales? Responsum: bene/male valeo, vivitur, fessus/a sum, gaudeo, etc.). This kind of activity is a fun way to start class, as it easily gets students engaged at the beginning of class and adds a sense of fun to the atmosphere.
OWAT (one word at a time): A technique widely used by language teachers using CI-based methods. I write about 8 words from the chapter we’re working on (this week at the beginning of the chapter, before we read together) on post-its. I give groups of 2-3 students one word at a time, telling them to “tollite manus” if they need another word. I tell students to write a sentence per word, and that the sentences as a whole should create a story. After they finish, they read their stories aloud. Usually they are funny and compelling to the whole class. I often ask questions to clarify the details of the story, but do not correct their grammar unless they ask.
Dictations: This is where I write a series of sentences using vocab from the story and read them aloud while students write what they hear. After each sentence, I ask them if any vocab words are unclear, and at the end of the exercise we sometimes translate the sentences. The goal here is to get repetitions of new vocab, but also to get students in the practice of hearing and writing in Latin. This activity always takes longer than I think it will.
Reading out loud: we often read out loud together from the book (or a short story I wrote), in Latin, without translating. Sometimes, I read passages and ask students to listen, and sometimes, I ask them to read sentence by sentence. I encourage students to ask about vocabularly words which are unfamiliar at the end of each section.
Circling: I often then ask circling questions, either using slides which ask these questions or simply by looking at the book. E.g.: Sentence: Iulia laeta est quia cantat. Questions: Num Iulia irata est? Cur laeta est?
Translation: we do not translate everything we read, but we do occassionally stop for 10 minutes or so to translate a passage. Sometimes, this means choral translation (as a group, with me pointing to words), and other times I ask students to translate sentence by sentence. Their translations so far have been accurate, and have made it clear that they generally understand sentences at sight.
Grammar explanation: this is when I give students explicit grammar explanations. I try to do this only after the students have seen many examples of the grammar topic in the context of a story. Sometimes I ask them to look at a Wheelock’s explanation as well. I spend a maximum of 30 minutes total on grammar explanations per week.
Various Writing Exercises: these may be more grammar/topic-focused or more open ended. For one activity, I asked students to write 5 sentences in Latin using the genitive case. For another, I asked them to write (in pairs) an explanation of a certain place using the model of LLPSI Cap. I. These tend to take up a lot of time (at least 25 minutes for pair/group activities), but are very engaging for students.
Quizzes: Students take quizzes on each chapter. The quiz consists of: a) a short passage (~100 words) of unseen adapted Latin, about as difficult as material they have been reading in that chapter, b) about 5 comprehension questions about the passage, c) a few grammar questions asking them to find examples in the passage of specific forms, e.g. a genitive singular, d) an extra credit section which asks them to translate a sentence from English into Latin. These take no longer than 15 minutes.
What worked:
Anything that got them talking about their lives; i.e. PQA (Personal Question & Answer). Students at this level need a fair amount of scaffolding/examples, so writing up possibilities on the board or giving examples and pictures on slides has been an effective way of structuring the activity and boosting student confidence.
OWAT was a great activity for students. They enjoyed writing the stories and hearing their classmates’ creations. They didn’t seem to get bored with the activity easily–in fact, I think they would have happily continued for the entire class.
Incorporating 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person present active indicative verbs, with infinitives, in all conjugations, at the same time (during week 3). I know it sounds like a lot, but with the inclusion of 1st and 2nd person forms and infinitives from the first week as a part of spoken activities, students are able to recognize them at this point.
What didn’t:
I showed students a table of declensions before they saw many of the cases in context; this created more confusion and anxiety around cases and declensions than I intended.
I did not make the instructions for the dictation clear enough, so some students were writing in Latin, while others were writing English translations. Next time, I will make this clearer.
Reading and circling can get a bit tedious. One way of circling I’ve found that engages students is acknowledging that the content is very simple, and that they may feel like kindergarteners, and then making each mundane question sound like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. But even then, any more than 15 minutes will put everyone to sleep.
Prep Time:
I try not to spend more than 30 minutes on prep for each class. Sometimes this ends up being more, sometimes less. To give you a sense, these activities take me the following amounts of prep time (excluding activities like reading out loud and translating, for which I do not prep):
Locutiones: 0 mins (if I have a powerpoint already)/30-45 minutes (if I have to create a short powerpoint)
Circling questions: 0-10 mins. For some passages, I prepare or think up a few questions, for others, I do not.
OWAT: 5 mins
Writing a simple short story (approx. 150-200 words): 30 mins
Writing a dictation exercise (approx. 10 short-ish sentences): 30 mins
Creating a powerpoint for a longer spoken activity: 1 hr
Creating a quiz: 30-40 mins
Observations:
They understand so much! It’s amazing to me that I can explain even relatively complicated instructions for tasks mostly in Latin with the right scaffolding, gesturing, pictures, etc. For example, if I say: Scribite tres sententias hoc vocabulo utentes, they understand what to do. They have not yet seen the participle, nor do they know the rule that utor takes the ablative, but the context and their prior acquisition make the sentence clear. Even if they are not producing all forms accurately yet, they are clearly understanding the distinctions between habes and habet or puer and puerum well in context.
Students are also beginning to develop intuitive senses about the language. For example, without having seen a chart of all present indicative active verb forms, and after having seen only 3rd person forms in readings, students were able to identify 1st and 2nd person forms simply from their exposure to them during other parts of class.
As we have gotten to know each other better, students have begun talking to each other (and me) more before class begins, and individual students seem more willing to participate. There is a jovial atmosphere in the room!
