On Wed, 18 Mar 1998, SAC wrote:
 
> <<  Please don't make assumptions about my ideology or agenda without
> consulting me first; >>
>
> Excellent advice, Johanna, and now I ask you to take it.
>
I apologize to Steve that my first posting offended him. He's right -- the
lack of context around his query pushed my 'here we go again with Latin as
the queen of languages and study of Latin as the ideal way to train
thought' button. Seeing some more detail of his situation, I can see how a
Latin course fits into the curriculum -- mostly because it seems to me to
be a good idea when the students are going to be learning both French and
Spanish later. I stick by my original idea that any non-English-like
language would do to teach comparative language structure and perhaps make
grammatical concepts more concrete for younger students. There is a
certain logic to choosing Latin because of its contributions to English
vocabulary, but there are also the dangers that I mentioned of students
not seeing the logic in studying this distant language (it is perhaps more
distant to American students than to Canadian). But I can see a lot of
benefit to choosing other languages that may play a part in student's
lives, such as languages that are well-represented by local immigrant
communities or languages that will be useful in students' future lives in
the 'global village'. Whenever I use examples from the languages of
immigrant students in my classes, such as Persian, Spanish, Vietnamese,
Chinese, or Korean, their faces light up, they have a chance to speak as
experts on their own language, and the other students take a little more
notice of them and perhaps become more interested in them. And of course
they see with immediacy the application of linguistic concepts to all
languages.
>
> Too often, people with degrees in a subject area, say linguistics, confuse
> that knowledge with expertise in teaching.  We all know that one need not have
> much going on upstairs to take a course, and we all have colleague who have
> been at it for years whom we do not think are very good.  Neither transcript
> nor tenure an educator make.
 
I don't want to think about what the intended meaning is here. It is true
that I have not taught below the college level, but I _am_ an educator at
that level. And I do have extensive experience as a 2nd-language teacher.
The techniques I mentioned in my first posting work at least as well as
'skills and drills', and my students who have gone out into the world as
ESL teachers tell me they have applied these strategies with success.
 
> If anyone has any constructive advice on how to
> construct a curriculum like the one I described above or any advice in this
> area at all, please let me know.  I will be greatly appreciative of any
> genuine attempt to _help_ me improve the language skills of the _young_
> children in my charge.
>
Have you looked for any literature on 2nd-language teaching for children?
I know that there is a lot of work in this area, and perhaps you are
familiar with it already. I imagine materials that work well for other
languages that are commonly taught to young children, such as English and
Spanish, could be adapted to teach Latin.
 
Johanna
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Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184  E-mail: [log in to unmask]      ~
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