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Date: | Tue, 9 Feb 1999 20:00:49 EST |
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Thanks for your response.
> There areall kinds of cool techniques, such as TPR, that make learning low-
risk >and fun, at least at the beginning
Can you give me any citations for elementary school techniques?
> I think Latin is extremely useful for handling English latinate
> vocabulary. But what about the borrowings from Greek, and the thousands
> from French? I'm not saying we need to teach Greek and French also, but
> they ought not be left out as contributors to Modern English.
We definitely deal with these. It's really a course on Latin and Greek roots
and affixes. French comes too for obvious reasons.
> Here's another suggestion I've made before: if the goal is not to make
> students fluent in Latin, but to help them appreciate structure in
> language and in the world in general, how about bringing in -- as is
> age-appropriate -- languages that, like Latin, express the same meanings
> as English in 'exotic' ways, or languages that mark meanings that English
> does not mark? We could relate this to students' lives by featuring
> languages that are directly or indirectly related to their heritage, or
> are reflected in immigrant communities in their environment. For example,
> we could use Hausa or Swahili as major African languages; Native American
> languages; Asian languages. Many of these languages have also contributed
> words to English, so that could be another point of contact.
>
> As useful as Latin is in dealing with technical vocabulary in English, I
> believe that we should work towards diluting the notion of Latin as the
> only model around for a language that marks more categories in more ways
> than English does. Teaching about Latin alone risks continuing the elitist
> (and false) notion that Latin is more logical or more likely to cultivate
> analytical thinking habits than other languages.
>
> I don't have concrete suggestions for lessons or languages to choose,
> because I"m not expert in what K-8 kids can handle when. But if Latin can
> be handled, so can other 'exotic' languages.
>
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