Chomsky’s Paradise Lost
Resources portfolio: George Macpherson 2013
The worksheet, Practising the infinitive with volo, nolo and possum, aims to supplement the
Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) and to reinforce the use of the verbs volo, nolo and possum with a
newly-taught grammar point on infinitives. The worksheet has the present tenses of all three verbs
conjugated in tables at the top. There is an illustration of Quintus, the son of Caecilius from book 1
of CLC. A thought bubble extends from his head with the words, ‘Am I dead or not…?’ There are ten
Latin sentences below to translate into English. They descend with increasing complexity.
After reading pages 2-4 of CLC book 2, which contain some sentences with volo, nolo,
possum and the infinitive, a formal grammar note explaining the infinitive and its –re endings is
written on the board and taken down by students. They will then receive this worksheet to practise
this new grammatical point.
CLC as a textbook follows an inductive approach to language acquisition. First published in
1970 it draws deeply on Noam Chomsky’s idea of an intuitive grammar (Chomsky 1957) (later
summarised as the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in the brain) and that a language is acquired
rather than learnt. CLC also draws on Modern Foreign Language techniques. It was also a reaction to
the traditional grammar-heavy and rote-learning techniques of Classics from Victorian times and the
crisis Classics faced following comprehensivisation and the dropping of O level Latin as a
requirement for Oxbridge entry (Gay, B. in Morwood J. The Teaching of Classics 2003).
CLC reflects the post-war shift in learning theories from the Behaviourist school of Pavlov
(Pavlov 1927) and Skinner (Skinner 1957), that of deductive and rote learning, to the theories of
social and cognitive constructivism of Piaget (Piaget 1923) and Vygotsky (Vygotsky 1934), where
learning is more child-centric, social and inductive.
Though well received by students and many teachers, in practice CLC’s grammar-lite
approach was found to need reinforcement with traditional grammar exercises in the classroom
(Gay 2003). It is into this context that this worksheet falls. With pressures of time on Latin in the
school timetable – often only about 1.5hours a week, the inductive approach of the CLC takes too
long. Use of a worksheet as this promotes active recall of the grammar points in a shorter space of
time than the inductive and repetitive nature of the strictly purist, intuitive-grammar, CLC approach.
This sort of tacking on of grammar exercise to the CLC textbook is perceived to be widely practised
by Classics teachers.
In practice:
After discussion in our portfolio group the thought bubble of Quintus in the illustration was
thought to be too confusing and detract from the main purpose of the worksheet. In the end it was
actually removed from the worksheet as it was seen to be too obscure a reference to the storylines
of CLC. The sheet was completed successfully by the students and the teacher ascertained the
pupils’ genuine satisfaction in working through the sentences and putting the rules of the grammar
note into practice. In a brief assessment for learning exercise at the end of the lesson, the majority
of students felt very confident (as opposed to less confident and confident) about the infinitive.
Ultimately the worksheet does run into conflict with the inductive philosophy of the CLC.
The sentences are not as heavily scaffolded, as a truly Vygotskian approach would dictate (Bruner
1985), or as the exercises and examples that exist in CLC itself. The very need for such a grammarheavy and traditional approach such as this worksheet does undermine the purist CLC approach, but
helps to bridge the lacuna of intransigence between the two theoretical learning camps, that of the
Behaviourists and that of the social Constructivists. In the best of all possible worlds a combination
of the two styles seems to be a sensible third way.
Bibliography
Bruner, J (1985) Vygotsky: a historical and conceptual perspective, in Wertsch, J. (ed) Culture,
Communication and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives, Cambridge: CUP
Bloom, B (1956) (ed.) The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classification of Educational
Goals, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain, New York: Longman
Chomsky, N (1957) Syntactic Structures, The Hague: Mouton
CLC (2000) Cambridge Latin Course, Book 2, Cambridge: CUP
Gay, B (2003) The theoretical underpinning of the Main Latin Courses, in Morwood, J (ed.) The
Teaching of Classics, Cambridge: CUP
Pavlov (1927) Conditioned reflexes: an investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral
cortex
Piaget, J. (1923) Le Langage et la Pensee chez l’enfant (Delacahux et Nestle)
Skinner, (1957) JB. Verbal Behaviour (Appleton-Century-Crofts)
Story, P (2003) The Development of the Cambridge Latin Course , in Morwood, J (ed.) The Teaching of
Classics, Cambridge: CUP
Vygotsky L. (1934) Thinking and Speech