Literacy
Unlocking the Mystery
of
Language Acquisition
The Doors of Language Learning
 1: Listening
 2: Speaking
 3: Reading
 4: Writing
What is Literacy?
1. Reading
2. Writing
Areas of Language Study
 Academic English
 Vocabulary Building
 Grammar & Structure of Language
 Why study a foreign language?
Academic English
 The fabric of textbooks and manuals
 Highly organized thought processes
 Specialized vocabularies
Vocabulary building
 Why do large vocabularies characterize executives
and possibly outstanding men and women in other
fields? The final answer seems to be that words
are the instruments by means of which men and
women grasp the thoughts of others and with
which they do much of their own thinking. They
are the "tools of thought."
 ---Johnson O'Connor
How you you build vocabulary?
 It takes 40-60 repetitions of a word used in
context for that word to be added to active
vocabulary.
 Study of root words and compounds
 Prefixes and suffixes
 Read, Read, Read!
 “The Sin of Silent Reading”
Learning Grammar & Structure
 “Bathed” in the sounds of the language.
 Patterns of grammar and spelling
 Irregularities
 Idioms
Language Learning Games
 Bingo
 Tic-Tac-Toe
 Vocabulary Bees
 Spelling Bees
 Concentration – Memory Match
 Chain Drills
 Foldables
Why Latin?
Isn’t Latin “dead”?
Facts:
 60% of English words have Latin roots
 90% of words 3 syllables or more
 Romance languages are spoken by 750
million people in 57 countries.
Language and Logic
 Rules
 Order
 Structure
Resources
 English From the Roots Up
– Joegil Lundquist
 Vocabulary From Classical Roots – Norma Fifer & Nancy
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Flowers
www.memoriapress.com
(source for Latin, Logic and classical education materials)
Ways Children Learn – Geeta Rani Lall
www.promotelatin.org
(website of the National Committee for Latin and Greek)
An ESL Teacher’s Handbook – Don Edic for LEI
A Natural History of Latin – Tore Janson