Oral language in the classroom – what is it good for?

I’ve been teaching Latin at this new school for almost 6 months now. One of my third year students is also in the study hall I monitor. Noticing my school spirit shirt, another kid asked where I got it and I explained that the previous Latin teacher had left it for me. That led to him questioning who that other teacher was and my student reminded him of who that teacher was. The student then asked my student if there was any difference between the teachers and my student said that the previous “Magister” taught all grammar [I would note that they learned it very well, esp the third year students who had him for two years] and Magister Barrett teaches you to actually understand Latin. He added that he got A’s in the other teacher’s Latin class by memorizing the grammar for a test but then couldn’t remember it later. [nevertheless, the 3rd year students do know what participles are and what the ablative case is for, etc., they just don’t know how to use them to understand and produce Latin]

I’ve been teaching Latin at this new school for almost 6 months now. One of my third year students is also in the study hall I monitor. Noticing my school spirit shirt, another kid asked where I got it and I explained that the previous Latin teacher had left it for me. That led to him questioning who that other teacher was and my student reminded him of who that teacher was. The student then asked my student if there was any difference between the teachers and my student said that the previous “Magister” taught all grammar [I would note that they learned it very well, esp the third year students who had him for two years] and Magister Barrett teaches you to actually understand Latin. He added that he got A’s in the other teacher’s Latin class by memorizing the grammar for a test but then couldn’t remember it later. [nevertheless, the 3rd year students do know what participles are and what the ablative case is for, etc., they just don’t how how to use them to understand and produce Latin]

It must be noted that this is an excellent student who has shown great excitement when we’ve done something with the language, like find out about each other, etc. I’m working grammar instruction in little by little e.g. our next story has great contrasts between perfect and imperfect aspect with past tense verbs. That will definitely play a part in determining how the writer set the scene in the story and told us what happened. We will look at the effect of conjunctions linking clauses e.g. ’because’, leading to the differential use of indicative and subjunctive verb forms with conjunctions to convey various effects.

Part of their break-down of the story into its elements is to come up with ideas on what we can do with the story, such as rewrite it, illustrate it, make a ’little book’ out of it, etc. Such writing allows them time to use their Monitor and to focus on accuracy in grammar b/c it gives them a reason to be accurate other than just getting points on tests.

I would also point out that one could teach all this just with reading and writing, but the students will get so much more input with us discussing the stories in class.

I then go on to do map work with them e.g. the story today dealt with a hunt for wild boar on Mt. Vesuvius (“Can you predict what will happen with Mt. Vesuvius?”). The map work Monday will deal with the volcano and where it sits in relationship to Pompei and Herculaneum (we’ve already identified the Herculaneum Gate in Pompei’s walls on a town plan), followed by a video on the science of the eruption of Vesuvis and the archaeology of the destroyed towns (in English, of course).

However, I want to make sure I am clear that Nancy’s and Daniel’s concern about oral work is much deeper than just making sure the students can use L2 in the outside world; it’s about providing the input and allows them to build a model of L2 in their minds. Without that, output will be in the form of the sort of dialogue we saw on SNL. Using the Monitor to construct sentences is useful at times, but it should by no means be the main reliance for expression. Appropriate phrases should pop out simply b/c the students have heard them enough that it happens almost without them thinking about it. Meticulously constructing utterances from memorized rules is the Monitor – not useless, but not proficiency either – and is necessary at various stages e.g. formulaic phrases to keep the classroom routine going: “ad latrinam ire possum puedo ir al bano mozhno uiti etc.

So oral work is really to build proficiency in the language period, not just for speaking. You might only read and write a dead language like Latin, but hearing and speaking it simply leads to greater proficiency in reading and writing.(I realize those are categorical statements and I figure you will assume that I rely on much more than my own personal experience in making them. Nevertheless, they are wide open to skepticism and questions).

(The posts I was responding to can be found on flteach under the thread “Excuses – Getting the Grammar – Producing students who can actually funtion in the target language.”)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *