Latin in classical education - what does it look like in the long term?

[Porridge]

Hello,

 

My children are young (DD7, DS5) and I'm starting to think about when to introduce another language and what language that should be.  They are already learning chinese (we are pseudo-heritage speakers, I am functionally illiterate but conversationally fluent).  I am curious about what the study of latin looks like for those who continue through the long term.   Whiel we would like to homeschool all the way through, we don't know whether our kids might eventually attend a brick and mortar school. If our kids eventually transition to brick and mortar school, none of the high schools in the area (public or private) that would be an option for us actually offer latin.  They offer only living languages.  So, though I like the idea of studying latin, I wonder whether it would be a better use of our time to introduce a living language -- both because they could use it right away and because they could continue their studies if we transition to B and M school down the line.

 

I'm not exactly sure what my question is. I am looking for perspective on the pros and cons of introducing latin in the mid-late elementary years.  I'm also curious as to whether people tend to add another language in addition to latin for their children. For us, I plan to have my children continue chinese, so adding a third language doesn't seem feasible.  I'm curious as to how hard or easy it has been for students to continue a rigorous study of latin in a homeschool environment (can they prepare for AP Latin at home?).  I'm curious as to whether any Classical Education adherents see any downsides to focusing on latin as opposed to a living language.

 

thanks!

[Reefgazer]

You might get more responses by cross-posting this to the K-8 board, but I'll take a stab at your questions.

 

We started Latin in 6th grade for DD and in 4th for DS.  I think 4th-5th grade is a great time to start.  It gives the child a chance to solidify their Latin grammar before high school Latin, allows ample time for learning enough Latin to take the AP Latin exam, and also gives her a chance to lay a great foundation for the study of Romance languages.

 

DD is learning Latin as well as French.  Knowing a decent amount of Latin grammar has actually helped DD with her French because many words are similar in nature.  So we have not had any problems with learning two languages at once.  DS is not interested in Languages and so he is only learning Latin because that will be his high school foreign language requirement.

 

I do not see any real downsides to studying Latin.  Quite the contrary - Latin proficiency has given DD benefits far beyond language acquisition.

Hello,

 

My children are young (DD7, DS5) and I'm starting to think about when to introduce another language and what language that should be.  They are already learning chinese (we are pseudo-heritage speakers, I am functionally illiterate but conversationally fluent).  I am curious about what the study of latin looks like for those who continue through the long term.   Whiel we would like to homeschool all the way through, we don't know whether our kids might eventually attend a brick and mortar school. If our kids eventually transition to brick and mortar school, none of the high schools in the area (public or private) that would be an option for us actually offer latin.  They offer only living languages.  So, though I like the idea of studying latin, I wonder whether it would be a better use of our time to introduce a living language -- both because they could use it right away and because they could continue their studies if we transition to B and M school down the line.

 

I'm not exactly sure what my question is. I am looking for perspective on the pros and cons of introducing latin in the mid-late elementary years.  I'm also curious as to whether people tend to add another language in addition to latin for their children. For us, I plan to have my children continue chinese, so adding a third language doesn't seem feasible.  I'm curious as to how hard or easy it has been for students to continue a rigorous study of latin in a homeschool environment (can they prepare for AP Latin at home?).  I'm curious as to whether any Classical Education adherents see any downsides to focusing on latin as opposed to a living language.

 

thanks!

 

Edited November 30, 2015 by reefgazer

[mom2att]

My ultimate goal in Latin was to help transition to a modern language, and that did not pan out as I had hoped. My three have all done Latin in elementary/middle school with the purpose of transitioning to a modern language in high school. Dd also completed two years of high school Latin before moving to Spanish. She's now a Linguistics major in college minoring in Spanish and taking Russian. She loves language, but says the Latin she took really didn't benefit her much.

 

My boys did several years of elementary level Latin and my high schooler is now taking Spanish 1. I had hoped that Latin would help him with modern language study, and it has a bit, but not to the level that I had hoped. He went into Spanish already knowing how to conjugate a verb, which is not true for all second language beginners, and some of the vocabulary transferred, but once he started Spanish he pretty much forgot all of his Latin.

 

I did not have a Latin background, but teaching Latin was easier than teaching a spoken language. I enjoyed teaching it and I don't regret that we did it, but what I have discovered is what I really loved about it was the structure and approach to language that it offered. Elementary Latin programs like those I used are like grammar stage building blocks, teaching the form, structure, and vocabulary in a very incremental way. I loved this and my kids did well with it. When my son got to high school Spanish, it was not a building blocks approach but instead more like a dump a bucket of information over the head approach--so much information is given with little time to absorb or learn it before moving on.

 

In short, I wish we had found an elementary Spanish program that followed that same building blocks style and spent our elementary years on that, which would have definitely made the transition to high school Spanish much easier.

[Colleen in NS]

Hello,

 

My children are young (DD7, DS5) and I'm starting to think about when to introduce another language and what language that should be.  They are already learning chinese (we are pseudo-heritage speakers, I am functionally illiterate but conversationally fluent).  I am curious about what the study of latin looks like for those who continue through the long term.   Whiel we would like to homeschool all the way through, we don't know whether our kids might eventually attend a brick and mortar school. If our kids eventually transition to brick and mortar school, none of the high schools in the area (public or private) that would be an option for us actually offer latin.  They offer only living languages.  So, though I like the idea of studying latin, I wonder whether it would be a better use of our time to introduce a living language -- both because they could use it right away and because they could continue their studies if we transition to B and M school down the line.

 

I'm not exactly sure what my question is. I am looking for perspective on the pros and cons of introducing latin in the mid-late elementary years.  I'm also curious as to whether people tend to add another language in addition to latin for their children. For us, I plan to have my children continue chinese, so adding a third language doesn't seem feasible.  I'm curious as to how hard or easy it has been for students to continue a rigorous study of latin in a homeschool environment (can they prepare for AP Latin at home?).  I'm curious as to whether any Classical Education adherents see any downsides to focusing on latin as opposed to a living language.

 

thanks!

 

What is it you like about the idea of studying Latin?  For me, I liked that my kids were getting a grounding in methodical study techniques, grammar that would help their English grammar, and grammar/vocabulary that would help any possible future study of language such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.  It definitely has come in handy for these things.  My kids each started in Grade 3.

 

I did try to add Spanish in for my son during middle years, but it was a flop - there just wasn't enough time.  I let him drop Latin after he finished Second Year Latin by Henle in Grade 9.  I figured that if he wanted to take up another language, he now had the skills to do so.  He knows how to start studying a foreign language.  Learn the characters, learn the sounds, learn vocabulary, learn grammar structures, listen, speak, etc. etc.

 

I do think my son could have prepared for AP Latin at home.

 

I let my daughter drop Latin after finishing Henle's First Year Latin last year.  She REALLY wanted to take up French, so I let go of my ideal to get her through another Latin book.  She is doing well with French study, so far.

 

I don't really think there is a downside to studying Latin, esp. if you are an English speaker/writer/reader.  But what I am seeing in your post is a strong desire to continue with Chinese, so that made me think of that question to ask you in the beginning of my post.  Latin can be helpful if your kids are going to study languages such as the ones I listed above, or if they are doing to read original Latin western lit. works (my kids didn't get that far).  I'm just thinking, though, that if your emphasis is going to be on the Chinese language, yours might possibly focus more on Chinese literature?  Or lit. from other Asian cultures?  esp. if it's part of your kids' heritage.  You might end up focusing there, which is perfectly fine!  Yes, even in "classical education."  To me, classical education can also mean preparation to study cultures/history that are not part of western culture/history.  It's about methodically studying whatever you are going to study.  :D  So anyway, I suggest you examine your reasons you might want to take up Latin, and weigh them with your other desires for your kids.

 

 

[KSinNS]

Christian Kopff, who is a classicist at UC Boulder has a great talk on this exact question:

 

http://www.societyforclassicallearning.org/index.php/resources-guest/media-guest

go to the 2013 list and it's called kopff-in defence of latin

 

Obviously, he's a bit biased, but he gives you lots of reasons why you could/should study Latin. However, there are lots of great reasons to study a modern language, too. And honestly, I'm not sure in the end how valuable it really is. 

 

One of my kids has started Latin, and so far it's been fun, and he's very happy but we aren't far enough into it to comment too deeply. I'm really not sure if it will ever be useful (pretty sure it won't be), or anything beyond a geeky thing my mom made me do, but we'll see. My goal is that he could, at some point, read texts in Latin, which he thinks would be quite cool, too. 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

What it looked like for us was several years dabbling with Latin in elementary and middle school, then serious Latin study in high school with The Lukeion Project.  In hindsight, I would have left Latin alone in the earlier grades and pressed on the German that the kids had learned as children.  There wasn't a big boost in Latin proficiency for the early study and German faded away.  

 

My oldest did three years of Latin and my next son is in AP Latin.  DS2 is pretty much able to sight read Virgil and has also learned a lot about the poetic devices and stylistic forms present in Latin literature.

[G5052]

I did Spanish with mine in grade school because I grew up speaking German, Spanish, and English, and it was easy for me at that level. We used two levels of La Clasa Divertida over three years, and they enjoyed it. I wanted to do Latin, but Spanish was more accessible for me. I'm not sure how much they really remember, but it gave them an introduction to languages. 

 

Then they did Latin in middle school and through high school. I actually took two of the middle school classes with them, and ended up teaching high school Latin locally for several years. But I'm an amateur, and mine went on to online teachers who specialize in Latin. Both of them were significantly above the students I taught locally, and my goal was four years of high school Latin.

 

My older ended up with 4 high school credits (through AP) and the other will have 4 at the end of this year, but not with an AP. She's done well, but is not AP Latin focused, so that will be the end of language study for her. She has some special interests she wants to do for 12th grade, and then plans to take Spanish in college for her language.

 

My older one also did two semesters of college Spanish and two years of Russian. We thought at one point that he was going to choose languages in college, but after Spanish he decided against that. He liked Latin, but not Latin poetry. And he's not fond of modern languages in general, so that was that. He's in college studying accounting, and has no foreign language requirement although he got a humanities requirement satisfied with AP Latin.

 

I know that many advocate Latin early on, but I've observed that some kids get burned out on it by high school. Among our local friends who did that, not one completed 4 years of high school Latin. Doing starting in 7th grade worked better for us because they were prepared to get the basics and then progress to rigorous study.

 

Some of our local high schools do have Latin, and various friends of ours took advantage of doing Latin in middle school and continuing in high school.

 

I love languages though (among other things) and have thoughts of going back to Latin or German when I become a "retired" homeschool mom in 18 months. We'll see!

 

Edited December 1, 2015 by G5052

[Porridge]

Thank you for these thoughtful and insightful perspectives! 

After mulling over this with my DH and reading your experiences, I think we are going to focus on greater depth in Chinese for now, and push off the decision of whether / when to start a 2nd foreign language for a year or two. It sounds like there is marginal benefit to starting Latin young.  My main reasons for being interested in Latin were for the grammar, vocabulary, cultural ties, systematic thinking and background for future study of Romance languages.

[madteaparty]

Reefgazer, I wonder if the reverse is true, ie French study may help my DS with Latin...I know for me having been fluent in Italian at one point, it helped with at least guessing correct with French.

To the OP, I want to add Latin as DS' s third language. Reason for Latin is that because it is not spoken, we can spend less time on it than we do on his other two languages and still see progress. I don't believe in once-a-week language study but with Latin we may be able to get away with studying it like we study history or geography...trying to be pragmatic here :)

Edited December 3, 2015 by madteaparty