Let’s Talk More About Latin and CI

3 thoughts on “Let’s Talk More About Latin and CI”

1. John Piazza

   December 3, 2012 at 12:24 am

   I didn’t mean to offend any French teachers with the “pursed lips” comment. Rather, I had in mind the sour look of disapproval coming from generations of sadistic Latin teachers looking upon all but the 0.01% of their students with nothing but scorn and derision.

   The whole business of the asterisk-exemption for classical languages (because of the emphasis on reading) gets to the heart of what we all are doing, and what we are up against. If Krashen is right, then there should never be a justifiable reason for teaching non-CI. There are no short cuts to acquisition. In fact, CI is the short cut, because older methods, if they ever get you to acquisition, will not do it as quickly.

   Ben, I really appreciate your efforts to keep Latin on everyone’s radar, and I think our struggle is relevant to all language teachers precisely because of these issues of speaking vs. reading a language, and the teachers who think that grammar-translation is just fine for programs whose primary goal is reading a language. As Ben pointed out, Latin also serves as a great hypocricy detector among the ranks of CI teachers–or hopefully a few teachable moments. At NTPRS, people were surprised to see Latin teachers there, but everyone I spoke with got it–there was never a feeling of “why are you here?” and that felt really good.

   As I’ve mentioned before, as ironic as it may seem, we find a lot of common ground with those who are trying to save/revive native languages in the US, the UK or anywhere else that local languages have been driven almost out of existence (Kate Taluga comes to mind, and the great conversations we had at NTPRS), because it raises this question of what to do with a language that few people speak. Just because a language is not commonly spoken, or spoken by a few, this does not make it any less a language, or any less worthy of being taught using CI.

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2. Ben Slavic

   December 3, 2012 at 2:22 am

   …I didn’t mean to offend any French teachers with the “pursed lips” comment….

   I didn’t mean to indicate any offense taken. The fact is that when hardly anyone – even in modern languages – even GETS what you guys are doing, we really don’t know. One would think that other language teachers would get it, at least. I meant it that way.

   Robert gets it. That’s enough for me. And I didn’t read a lot of sarcasm into his comment about more and better Latin instruction desired by the Pope for the Vatican. He wants better instruction? He wants a little mojo in the Vatican? Then he needs to come to you and Bob and David and the others who are doing this. Because your work is the most exciting thing going on in Latin in the world. Unless someone else is doing it. I doubt that.

   Shouldn’t we other teachers respect that you Latinists have made an almost unbelievable rift with tradition compared to ours? Ours HAD to happen. We are replacing shit. But the shit we are replacing is diarrhea. You are having to dig fecal matter out that has turned to concrete in a one thousand year old intestine.

   That is why what you are doing compared to what we are doing is much more heroic. Jeff Brickler’s story is a heroic one, is it not? When people discount your work and the pick axe yoga you are doing these days, they discount your vision of what is possible for Latin, and that ain’t right.

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3. Bob Patrick

   December 5, 2012 at 6:01 pm

   Jeffrey Brickler’s story IS INDEED heroic. I have been through much of what he is dealing with, but I have always had administrators who had my back. That makes his journey so much more heroic–blind dash into the night holding the truth tightly to one’s chest.

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