View Content #11660
| Contentid | 11660 |
|---|---|
| Content Type | 1 |
| Title | Summer Language Ideas |
| Body | A Latin teacher recently offered the following suggestions on the Latinteach listserv, mostly applicable to any language, for minimizing the need for beginning-of-year review: If your school or district does not forbid it and it is realistic with your set of students, you can reduce the need for beginning-of-year review--and indeed, set up some excellent new beginning-of-year activities--by providing ways for students to work (or play!) with Latin over the course of the summer. Something I've done is provided students with a list of about twenty Latin-related websites (tarheelreader, trescolumnae, latinviafables, quia, SCHOLA, youtube channels, sites with more links, . . . .) and had them spend a certain time per day or per week on the sites of their choice. The students don't have to write anything down (except, as I've sometimes required, a log of how they spent their Latin time), they just spend time with Latin. I always suggest that students reread stories from the previous year. I've also had students keep track of all remotely Latin-related incidents or observations over the course of the summer. I tend to get several emails about these during the summer, but students also report on them at the beginning of the year, which leads me to the additional benefit (in addition, that is, to keeping Latin active in students' lives) of having students sticking with Latin over the summer: A lot of in-class activities and take-home assignments of various levels of formality can grow out of these summer interactions. For instance, students can write about or report orally on some Latin-related incidents. One hears about mottoes students saw on buildings, Latin-named brands of toilet fixtures students saw in a public bathroom, t-shirts students found with Latin on them, conversations students had with a relative who used to take Latin--all kinds of stuff--and great conversations and teaching moments can come from these reports. One time a student found (and bought) a t-shirt with the phrase "medium est nuntius," which led into a conversation about Marshall McLuhan's media theories. (Admittedly, "medium est nuntius" is not a very idiomatic-sounding translation of his famous dictum, "the medium is the message.") Lots of students text each other in Latin, not just during the school year, but also over the summer, which raises issues about abbreviations, slang and linguistics registers in general. For especially eager students, there are summer Latin events such as the conventiculum at Christendom College (some other conventicula welcome high school students without being specifically geared toward them) and, for those in or near Los Angeles, the new Academia Aestiva Latina at the Getty Villa, which is designed specifically for high school students. These are not things entire classes are likely to do, of course, but students who do something like this can report back to the class or, better yet, teach the class something they learned at a summer Latin event. Bailey, J. [Latinteach] Not beginning the year with review; summer Latin activities. The Teaching of the Latin Language listserv (latinteach@nxport.com, 11 Aug 2010). |
| Source | Latinteach |
| Inputdate | 2010-08-30 10:43:02 |
| Lastmodifieddate | 2010-08-30 10:43:02 |
| Expdate | Not set |
| Publishdate | 2010-09-06 00:00:00 |
| Displaydate | Not set |
| Active | 1 |
| Emailed | 1 |
| Isarchived | 1 |
