Creating a
Comprehensible Input
Classroom
Dr. Robert Patrick
Parkview High School
Agenda
Principles of CI
Daily Engagement and Job
Exerceamus!
What a year looks like
What a week looks like
What motivates me
• Healthy Latin programs
• Equity in the classroom
Comprehensible Input
Mission Statement
Our aim is to make the acquisition of Latin possible for all
kinds of learners. In order to do that:
•
•
we affirm that Latin is a language like any other with its
level of inflection.
we affirm that anyone who wants to acquire ability in
Latin can do so if offered an approach which employs
principles of best practice in language acquisition.
Mission Statement . . .
•
•
•
We acknowledge that most Latin teachers, like most
language teachers are themselves "four percenters"
who enjoy questions of linguistics, grammar, and
philology.
These are fascinating disciplines of their own.
They are not language acquisition, and they
interfere with acquisition whenever and wherever
they are substituted for best practices.
Latin teachers are NOT normal. For our programs to
grow and thrive we must be good at teaching NORMAL
kids.
??????????????????????????
• Do I have to give up my love of grammar?
• My love of Latin literature?
• My passion for Roman history?
• My unending delight in philology?
• Latin teachers MUST know and be trained in
•
these things.
It’s not what we know. It’s how we use it.
How to make a cheesecake
Cheesecake
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Graham crackers
Sugar
Salt
Butter
Cream cheese
Vanilla extract
Eggs
Sour cream
Heavy cream
berries
Rotary Principle 1
The directions you are given may not mean
what you think they mean
Rotary Principle 2
You can stay on the rotary as long as you like
until you are sure where you are going.
Principles of CI--so far
Principles of Best Practicies
for Acquiring Latin I
It is impossible to prepare students to
read the great Latin literature in 3-4
years.
It is possible to give them basic reading
facility AND an enjoyable experience
of reading Latin, which may
encourage them to continue study, in
school or on their own.
II
Every student has a right
to experience being in a
second (or third or fourth)
language
III
Latin teachers are not
normal and Latin is not
different.
IV
Students only acquire language,
including Latin, when they receive
understandable messages in the
target language.
V
One of the quickest ways to deliver
an understandable message in Latin
is to give an English equivalent for a
new word or phrase and then
continue delivering messages in
Latin.
VI
Language acquisition, including the
assimilation and understanding of
grammar, according to the latest
brain research, happens
unconsciously..
Forgetting that I am speaking Latin
VII
Direct grammar instruction does not
advance acquisition. It interferes.
It raises stress levels.
Rising stress = lowering acquisition
Grammar instruction can be helpful in advanced stages of acquisition as
students begin to NEED to edit their own language.
VIII
Error correction tends to put students on
the defensive (raise stress).
It focuses on the form (grammar) of the
Latin and not the message, thereby
inhibiting acquisition.
Understandable messages are lost in the
“endings”.
IX
Shelter vocabulary, not grammar.
• All our texts do just the opposite.
• Consider Tres Ursi.
• What to do with our texts, especially if they
have good stories?
X
"Four percenters", both students and
teachers, will interfere with their own
language acquisition by their desire to focus
on grammar study, translation, and language
control.
XI
We have an obligation to stay
focused: am I delivering
understandable messages in Latin?
“This is a game changer.”
Keith Toda
Delivering understandable messages
will mean that WE are uncomfortable
and that students are more at ease.
Lower stress = raised acquisition
XII
Reading Latin is
not translating Latin or speed translating.
• Reading: looking at squiggles on a page and
•
•
seeing a movie in your head.
Reading proficiency: what you are able to do,
not what you know about the language.
Our methods have focused on knowing about
and not allowed us to do much in Latin.
XIII
True reading develops in stages.
• It depends on acquired language.
• It does not correspond to a grammar
•
curriculum.
Reading is taking in understandable
messages. If the messages are not
understandable, it’s not reading.
XIV
i+1
• i + 1 = where the students are, with
•
•
•
interesting material plus a slight edge.
Reading Latin only advances acquisition
when it is i + 1.
No textbook currently in use in the US
provides those kinds of readings
Teachers are obligated to create and edit
readings to fulfill this requirement.
XV
Production, of any kind, does NOT advance
acquisition.
Think sex.
Production happens when the individual is
ready to produce and not a moment before.
The individual will produce at the levels
he/she is capable of and will advance at
his/her own pace.
The only thing that will increase the
individual's ability to produce higher levels of
Latin is to receive regular and constant
understandable messages in Latin, i + 1.
•
•
•
XVI
CI is not Immersion
Immersion camps like Rusticationes, Bidua and
Conventicula
Helpful and delicious in their own way, but . . .
They are filled entirely with 4 percenters
Screened by prior knowledge of Latin grammar
and not reduplicable in classroom
with normal students (i.e. not 4 percenters)
Immersion camps are stressful, and rising stress =
lowering acquisition.
•
•
•
•
•
XVII
CI does happen in all kinds of
classrooms.
• In strict grammar-translation classrooms,
•
•
moments of understandable messages in
Latin happen, usually unintentionally.
In immersion camps, understandable
messages happen all the time, intentionally
and unintentionally.
How do we craft class sessions where for 90%
of the time, we are delivering understandable
messages in Latin?
GPS Rule -- use tools the
way they can best be used
in the location
Various Delivery Methods
Under the Umbrella
TPR
Read and Discuss
Circling with balls
One Word Pictures
TPRS--ask and tell
Word Chunk Game
PQA
Readers' Theater
WAYK
Language Experience
Micrologue
Quae creanda et
Dictatio
facienda
Embedded readings
Teacher: delivers understandable messages in Latin.
Daily Engagement and Jobs
Daily Engagement requires:
Bright eyes, heads up, square shoulders
Clear desk
Responses to EVERYTHING
Jobs (there can be millions of them):
Dinumerator
Scriptor
Pictor
Horologiarius/a
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Exerceamus!
Q and A
What is comprehensible input?
What does it have to do with equity in the
classroom?
What does it have to do with healthy Latin
programs?
How many ways are there to deliver it?
Various Delivery Methods
Under the Umbrella
TPR
Read and Discuss
Circling with balls
One Word Pictures
TPRS--ask and tell
Word Chunk Game
PQA
Readers' Theater
WAYK
Language Experience
Micrologue
Quae creanda et
Dictatio
facienda
Embedded readings
Teacher: delivers understandable messages in Latin.
A CI Week in Latin 1?
Die Lunae: Dictatio
Die Martis: 4 new words, circle, ask, tell, PQA,
with jobs
Die Mercurii: 4 new words, circle, ask, tell, PQA
with jobs
Die Iovis: 4 new words, circle, ask, tell, PQA,
with jobs
Die Veneris: Word Chunk Game