s/o Latin pedegogy.... Back to ME

[christine in al]

YIKES!!! Do I have this backwards??

I was going to do Latin up to High School then a second " living " language

 

 

Here was my thinking: ( woefully ignorant)

 

I was doing Latin first, you know: build the foundation of grammar, words having genders, blah blah blah,,, and since Latin spawned ( don't jump on me,, I know folks were not just grunting and pointing before the Romans invaded,,, but) my THIINKING has been that Latin is the Foundation of:

French,Italian,and Spanish the dc could choose one of those and it would be easy with a strong Latin background,,, whatever THAT was.

 

 

Well , Santa, Here's what I want:

I want them to be able to read original works in Latin( secular classical), and be fluent in a second language.

dd 7, ds9 will be completing SSL and Minimus this year and Iwas going to start Latin Prep with ds next year.

 

Should we be doing our modern language now, ( grammar stage) and save the real STUDY of Latin for later? (Logic stage) We have MCT and will be dong the Latin roots of English bits. DS and I especially love discovering Latin roots of English or Science. And we'll be working on Grammar study in English with MCT and FLL.

 

So do I make a whole NEW plan, have them choose a foreign language and we learn that. THEN we do Latin.

 

This is a complete reversal of my plan, Does this make more sense though?

 

Christine in AL

[christine in al]

need it for science.

Back to my foundations idea.

~c.

[forty-two]

I want them to be able to read original works in Latin( secular classical), and be fluent in a second language.

dd 7, ds9 will be completing SSL and Minimus this year and I was going to start Latin Prep with ds next year.

 

Should we be doing our modern language now, ( grammar stage) and save the real STUDY of Latin for later? (Logic stage)

 

Being able to read Latin classics will require a high level of Latin knowledge - equivalent to the English skill level required to read Shakespeare and Milton. The ability to do high level academic work in a language is different than just being able to converse fluently and read everyday things (i.e. newspaper).

 

It takes time to acquire that level of skill. You can either put in a little time and effort per day over a long time, or put in a lot of time and effort per day over a shorter time. The point of starting Latin early is so you don't end up with a death march to the classics - moving from rank beginner to studying the Latin equivalent of Shakespeare in the space of a year or two. This pace tended to cause all but the brightest to flounder and wind up dropping Latin for good as soon as they were allowed.

 

(As for grammar, my point on the other post was just that formal grammar knowledge is no substitute for copious input in the target language. In fact, you can be fluent in a language without ever studying the grammar, and in fact many foreign language researchers and teachers believe grammatical knowledge has absolutely no bearing on acquiring a second language. However, if you want to have a high level command of a given language, you eventually need to learn grammar so you can intelligently analyze and discuss the complicated language structures used in educated writing. So, you can probably learn to read and comprehend Virgil with no conscious knowledge of Latin grammar, but you'd be sorely limited in trying to analyze why he did this instead of that, or how his use of 'x' showed 'y' - formal grammar knowledge is needed to do literary analysis.)

 

All that to say that, unless you want your dc to have equally as much skill in their modern language as you want them to have in Latin, you are probably going to need to spend more time on Latin than on the foreign language. In that case, it makes sense to start Latin earlier than a modern language, so you have plenty of time to master it.

 

HTH

[christine in al]

I've been doing this::willy_nilly:

 

thanks..

breathe...

 

~c.

[Laura Corin]

I think that taking a living language early is very valuable: it allows truly correct pronunciation to develop. Hobbes, who started Mandarin by immersion at the age of 4, has wonderful pronunciation and tones. Calvin is good too, but not quite so correct; he started Mandarin at 7.

 

Both boys started Latin at 8 or 9, then added in French at 9 (Hobbes) and 12 (Calvin). Their French pronunciation is not nearly as good as their Mandarin.

 

Laura

[Rosie_0801]

I intend to start my kiddies off with Latin at 5, then Arabic at six. I figure a little of each language each day will add up over the course of their primary and secondary school educations and give them time for it to sink in. Cramming is a technique for picking up extra points in exams, not a good method of actually learning.

 

So, if your goals are still the same as they ever were, I figure your plan is still good :)

 

Rosie

[christine in al]

next year...

Latin Prep for 10 year old

and some yet-to-be-determined bridge Latin 9 between Minimus and Latin Prep) for dd 8

 

AND.. Petit Pont French, kind of for fun, for both. Starting now.

We are still in Minimus and even have some SSL to finish.

 

Is that insane? Adding French? now

 

How would you schedule two languages so they don't get in each other's way.

 

~christine in al

[lionfamily1999]

We're doing Latin and Greek. Latin in the morning, Greek in the afternoon. Ds is on Greek 3 and Latina Christiana 1 and keeping them straight just fine.

 

Do you have someone they can practice with that is fluent in French? I recently read that unless they have someone that knows that language and chances to practice it, they wil not be fluent. That's my reason for putting off a modern language with ds. Dd is in middle school and we're studying French, because she's taking it next year and terrified :p

 

I don't know if that's true, that they cannot be fluent without a fluent speaker, but it's given me reason enough to put a modern language off until he's older.

[christine in al]

I agree that would be by for the best. What I would love is that from a child's birth one parent speaks one language, the other speaks the second language. totally. Kids in that environment tend to speak later, but when they do, both languages are there. boom. sigh.

 

It really does need to be practiced, ,,,, I'm not fluent, I'm a Bhuddist French Speaker. There is no past, and no future, there is only NOW.

 

I've seen postings that it is better to learn Latin before adding Greek. My kids are going to need to be homeschooled unitl they are 45 years old.

 

I am glad Greek is working for you. What do you use?

more curriculum to look at.

~christine in AL

[Laura Corin]

next year...

Latin Prep for 10 year old

and some yet-to-be-determined bridge Latin 9 between Minimus and Latin Prep) for dd 8

 

AND.. Petit Pont French, kind of for fun, for both. Starting now.

We are still in Minimus and even have some SSL to finish.

 

Is that insane? Adding French? now

 

How would you schedule two languages so they don't get in each other's way.

 

~christine in al

 

We don't find that languages get confused. I often find myself teaching Hobbes Latin, French and Greek all in a row. And we often talk French on the way to Mandarin class. I want them to be able to swap backwards and forwards fluently, and it seems to be working.

 

Laura

[lionfamily1999]

I agree that would be by for the best. What I would love is that from a child's birth one parent speaks one language, the other speaks the second language. totally. Kids in that environment tend to speak later, but when they do, both languages are there. boom. sigh.

 

It really does need to be practiced, ,,,, I'm not fluent, I'm a Bhuddist French Speaker. There is no past, and no future, there is only NOW.

 

I've seen postings that it is better to learn Latin before adding Greek. My kids are going to need to be homeschooled unitl they are 45 years old.

 

I am glad Greek is working for you. What do you use?

more curriculum to look at.

~christine in AL

Math and Science make me feel this way. Ds does well in both, but it doesn't seem like there's time to really teach it all. We gloss over the surface, but there's so much more! Then again, I guess that's what college is for :lol: I keep forgetting I don't have to teach him everything.

 

We've only been doing this for a year now. We started with Prima Latina last December (ds finished in August). Now, we're in Latina Christiana 1. For his birthday (May) we added Greek, Hey Andrew! 1. Dh finished that in about a month and a half. It's just the lower case alphabet. The he flew through Hey Andrew 2, very gentle introduction to a few words, and we hit Hey Andrew 3. We started that... last month or the month before(?). Now, the levels are difficult enough that it's taking time to finish the lessons :) I would recommend Hey Andrew! if only because it's so easy to start and the workbook has been enjoyable for ds. HA3 has humbled him, but I don't think he would've even tried, except that 1 and 2 were so easy they gave him the confidence to really put himself into the work.

[G5052]

We've done "Latin Lite" including Minimus until they have a foundation in grammar, then Matin Latin, and now my oldest is taking a class with an outside teacher with Henle. Matin Latin is not as popular on these boards because it's more bare-bones and not as scripted as some, but it works for me.

 

Then we use Rosetta Stone for Spanish. My goal is basic vocabulary and verbal fluency, and then they'll take "real" Spanish in high school. Prior to that, we used two levels of La Clasa Divertida, but it was time for something more independent.

[elegantlion]

We started Latin last year and plan to continue through high school. Ideally I'd like to add one or more modern languages and Greek into the mix. I have curriculum for Italian and Spanish already. I'd like to experiment with a few languages before high school and then have him pick one (in addition to Latin and Greek) and take two-four years in high school.