The speed and accuracy with which a child who has been moved to another country picks up the new language spoken by his or her playfellows and classmates is often quite astonishing in their limited sphere children may become quite fluent in a new language within a few months. Latin is a foreign language like other foreign languages and should be taught by similar methods.įoreign language teachers have always taken a great interest in the process by which a young child acquires a second language when placed in new linguistic surroundings. There is no reason why Latin should be taught by methods totally different from those used in the teaching of modern languages. I know that this sort of inane disconnected sentences have long ago been removed from Latin primers, but even in modern textbooks you may still find ridiculous stories in what is often doubtful Latin, and in any case pupils have to begin by learning grammatical forms and looking up every word in a glossary before they can go on to analyse the parts of a sentence and translate word for word – a procedure that can best be described as ‘deciphering’, not reading. –Īfter learning the 1st declension, the next task set poor little Churchill would certainly be to parse and translate sentences like Such was my first introduction to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit. ‘If you are impertinent, you will be punished, and punished, let me tell you, very severely’, was his conclusive rejoinder. ‘But I never do’, I blurted out in honest amazement. ’O table, – you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table.’ And then seeing he was not carrying me with him, ‘You would use it in speaking to a table.’ ‘But why O table?’ I persisted in genuine curiosity. ‘Mensa O table is the vocative case’, he replied. ‘The why does mensa also mean O table’, I enquired, ‘and what does O table mean?’ You have learnt the singular of the First Declension.’ He seemed so satisfied with this that I was emboldened to ask a question. ‘I think I can say it, sir’, I replied and I gabbled it off. And I thereupon proceeded, as far as my private sorrows would allow, to memorise the acrostic-looking task which had been set me. However, there was one thing I could always do: I could learn by heart. What on earth did it mean? Where was the sense in it? It seemed absolute rigmarole to me. ‘I will come back in half an hour and see what you know.’īehold me then on a gloomy evening, with an aching heart, seated in front of the First Declension: Mensa ‘You must learn this’, he said, pointing to a number of words in a frame of lines. ‘This is a Latin grammar.’ He opened it at a well-thumbed page. ‘You have never done any Latin before, have you?’ he said. He produced a thin greeny-brown, covered book filled with words in different types of print. All the- other boys were out of doors, and I was alone with the Form Master.
I was taken into a Form Room and told to sit at a desk. He tells us how, when seven years old, he was taken to a private boarding school to be taught ‘the classics’ by the very best teachers. I have taken my example from a book by Winston S. It would perhaps be a good idea to begin by giving you an illustrative example of the way we can all agree that Latin should not be taught. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to inform Latin teachers and students of my rather unorthodox ideas about Latin teaching. ORBERG ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS (conferences in Europe and USA)