Application for funding from the Humanities
Teaching Enhancement and Student Success Fund 2011/12
Summary sheet
Title of project
"Test yourself": extensive online Latin testing using blackboard 9
Outline of project
To develop a large bank of tests, based on the course book, to support
individual learning of Latin vocabulary, morphology, and syntax.
Name(s) of applicant(s)
Alison Sharrock
Email(s)
Alison.Sharrock@Manchester.ac.uk
Tel:
53088
School
Arts, Histories, and Cultures
Name of programme(s) or unit(s)
CLAH 20171+ 30182
Is it credit-bearing?
Yes (20 credits per unit at BA level, 30 credits in total at MA level)
Year of study
One, two, three, MA, Ph.D.
Number of students to benefit?
Around 60 per year. The course is taken by undergraduate students on
the "course 2" (not A-level entry) version of Classics, Classics and Ancient
History, Latin, Greek, Latin/Greek joint honours; it is optional (but
strongly encouraged) for students on Classical Studies and Ancient
History (and may be taken up in any of the three years); it is taken by
non-ClAH students on Ancient History and Archaeology (run by
archaeology), History, Mediaeval Studies, and occasionally others; it or
the Greek equivalent is compulsory for students on the MA in Classics
and Ancient History who have not taken a classical language previously; it
is an important part of research training for Ph.D. students in Classics,
mediaeval history, and some other subjects, if they have not previously
learnt Latin.
Please attach a page of A4 answering the following questions and providing any other information
you think will be helpful. Faculty eLearning teams can be contacted at: elearning@manchester.ac.uk
or x65544 to provide assistance with proposals.
 Background
Over the last 30 years, the number of schools teaching Latin and Greek to A-level has suffered a
massive reduction. In response to this, the discipline throughout the country has developed the
practice of, and some of the resources for, teaching both Latin and Greek to beginners at university.
The course book that we use, Reading Latin, published by Cambridge University Press, was designed
for this type of intensive beginners' course at university level, but at the moment has no electronic
resources. Although there are some other online vocabulary testers freely available, because they
are not linked to the vocabulary bank of the course they are close to useless for the early stages.
Alongside this lack of suitable resources, we have a student body with very little experience of
language learning, and essentially no experience of the kind of intensive, dare I say "drilled", learning
of vocabulary and morphology (the forms of words in an inflected language) which are necessary to
gain even elementary mastery of Latin and Greek. Many of the students taking this course are in
their first year, with all the uncertainties and upheavals which that involves, but the intensive nature
of the course means that they have to engage with it fully and immediately. If they only start getting
their bearings by week three, it may already be too late. Although Classics and Ancient History is not
a subject area with low NSS scores, our beginners’ courses have historically suffered from high
failure rates and poor progression to advanced Latin and Greek courses. We are currently involved in
a raft of measures to improve both these problems, one of which is the subject of the current
application.
 What will the development achieve?
My colleagues and I believe that blackboard nine gives us an opportunity to encourage students to
start the practice of regular language learning straightaway, using both computers and the kinds of
mobile devices which are now becoming common and which blackboard nine supports.
 How do the outputs align with the Faculty or School’s teaching and learning priorities?
The project will improve retention, encourage independent learning, maximise the value of contact
time (see below), support students from non-traditional backgrounds (the most traditional
background, after all, is the one in which Latin and Greek are taught to A-level; a grammar school is
originally a place where you learn Latin grammar), and improve the student experience.
 How will the outputs enhance learning?
Learning Latin involves a great deal of rote learning. This is true of modern languages as well, but in
the case of ancient languages there is not the possibility available of "natural" language acquisition,
by means of radio, television, conversation, etc.. Self-testing is hugely valuable, but not easy to do
without immediate feedback. Not only will these tests include vocabulary questions, for which it
would be strictly possible for the strong-willed to learn and gain feedback simply from the book, but
also syntax questions such as "can this noun and this adjective agree with each other", for which
blackboard can provide immediate feedback, whereas the student working alone with the book
would have to hunt around for the answer and then not necessarily be sure that he or she had found
the correct answer.
Making use of extensive online testing will also save us class time. The three hours a week of contact
time is very tight for teaching this course, but we have recently insisted on spending some of that
time on testing, because of the importance of learning at every stage. These online tests will enable
us to dispense with that part of the contact time, which can then be spent on other exercises.
 How many students will the outputs benefit, actually and potentially, and how are you going
to ensure they complete the activities?
All the students who choose to take these course units will benefit, as long as they actually do the
testing. I intend to use the early warning system in blackboard to identify students who are not
attempting the tests or who are producing a lot of poor scores. I will then contact them by e-mail
and invite them to come and talk to me or to one of the team.
 How will the outputs be sustained after project funding ceases?
Once the tests are up and running, they should be reusable without much further attention for years
to come.
 How will the outputs be evaluated, by students and by others?
Students will be invited to give feedback in the usual way by course questionnaires. In addition,
there will be a "feedback to staff" place on blackboard where students can leave comments. Four
members of staff are involved in teaching the course, and will be constantly evaluating the success
of their efforts.
 A brief outline (no specifications needed) of the type of equipment needed and how it will
support the project
Here is the strange bit. I do not need any particular equipment for this project, but I do need some
extra hours of my assistant. I suffer from quite severe arthritis which means that I cannot use a
mouse and keyboard for more than a few words at a time. I am writing this document using my
Dragon voice recognition software, which is fine for continuous English prose, but which is extremely
cumbersome for anything not in English (words in Latin have to be spelt out individually using the
special "spell function", which means it takes about 10 times as long) and for anything involving
mouse work. I have an assistant for five hours per week, paid for partly by Access to Work and partly
by the School, but I need every bit of those five hours for other elements of support. I'm asking now
for money to pay my assistant to do some of the manual inputting of material that will be necessary.
If you require further information about this rather unusual request, I would be happy to give it.
I should say that, because I want to get this started in the current semester, I have already done
quite a lot of work on working out how to make the test effectively. I have had good support from elearning already, using their drop-in sessions, and I am about to explore the programme Respondus,
to see whether this can be used to help with the production of large numbers of test questions. I am
also working on a set of instructions for the team teaching this course, in order to enable them
simply to create questions for the bank. But for this to work, I need the help of someone else's
functional hands.