As allure of Latin wanes, new teaching methods focus on fun

[TexasTowelie]

When she started teaching Latin 40 years ago, Patty Mullis used to drill her students on grammar and structure.

These days, Mullis and other Latin teachers are using new teaching methods to keep the “dead language” from languishing in the classroom.

“I tell the kids, Latin is everywhere you look! Medical terms, legal terms, even Harry Potter spells!” Mullis said, beaming after cheering on the Nokomis Regional High School Latin students in a muddy tug of war at the Maine Junior Classical League spring convention last week.

“Teaching at first was all geared to grammar and we’d bring in the mythology and culture to keep the kids from going crazy,” Mullis said. Today, students read original works in Latin, recite the poetry and study the political and cultural history of the Roman Empire.

Read more: http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/28/as-allure-of-latin-wanes-new-teaching-methods-focus-on-fun/

[TexasProgresive]

1. It took me a long time to recognize why I aced the SAT vocabulary test

4 years of Latin. I just thought it was because I'm so smart. But really so many words in English are Latin derived so one discipline aided the other. And there is the bonus of reading Ceaser's Galic jounral, Cicero and for fun Martial's epigrams. Our teacher told us if we wanted to learn "barn yard" Latin we could read Martial

Matial's take on the art of medicine in his day seems amazingly appropriate for today. ( Book V:IX)
Languebam: sed tu comitatus protinus ad me
Venisti centum, Symmache, discipulis.
Centum me tetigere manus aquilone gelatae:
Non habui febrem, Symmache, nunc habeo.
https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Epigrammaton_liber_V#IX

"I felt a little ill and called Dr. Symmachus.
Well, you came, Symmachus, but you brought 100 medical students with you.
One hundred ice-cold hands poked and jabbed me.
I didn't have a fever, Symmachus, when I called you –but now I do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial