Hi Ben,
I teach 7-8 grade Latin at Cathedral School for Boys in San Francisco, CA. Early in my study of Latin I was fortunate to come into contact with teachers and colleagues who spoke Latin as a way to encourage interest and proficiency in the language. My experiences with learning a language are what caused me to become a teacher, and have led me to search out strategies for making Latin comprehensible and meaningful to my students. There is now a new generation of Latin teachers who are realizing that the traditional (i.e. grammar-translation) methods of teaching Latin are not working, and that teaching to 4% of students and telling the rest of them to go take Spanish is not a sustainable model for the survival of Latin in our schools. With this in mind, my colleague Bob Patrick and I established an email list called Latin–Best Practices, which now has over 800 members–many of them Latin teachers who suspect that there is a better way out there, but are still trying to figure out how to make that happen. I have been kicking the theory around for almost 5 years, and after landing a steady Latin job this year, and after a few experiments and successes this year I am finally ready to work on the practical nuts and bolts of making CI happen in my classroom on a regular basis, and share the results with my colleagues.
www.johnpiazza.net
The Essential Marcus Aurelius
Now available in bookstores, or via John’s website.