Via Facilis

(ELVN Is In The Building!)

Vocabulary. How to get it? How to keep it?

Flash cards (self-made not store-bought) are effective, flexible, and travel easily and well. Wherever you are, you can pull out your flash cards and practice your vocabulary.

The writing out of forms again and again is also helpful. Saying vocabulary out loud is efficacious as well. Multi-sensoral rote memorization, in other words, works. And yet sometimes our students still don't learn their vocab.

Pondering this conundrum, I hit upon an unexpected but simple solution. I now require all my students to keep an ELVN: the Exclusively Latin Vocabulary Notebook. The meaning is clear: Latin. Period. No other subjects allowed.

When to use ELVN?
Every time students miss a vocabulary word in the course of a class.

What to write?
After a dateline, the full dictionary listing of the particular word

– even if students have written it down several times before
– even if they have written it down that very class.

The physical act of writing down the words correctly immediately after making a mistake prevents students from persisting in errors and solidifies memorization. The ELVN becomes a running record not just of how many times students have seen, and written down, a given vocabulary item, but precisely when they last saw it. Awareness of vocabulary becomes keener.

Bottom line: an ELVN-like tool acts as a vehicle for long term memory vocabulary acquisition.

One natural spin off of using ELVN is a non-quiz quiz in a game format. Recently, instead of having the students write out a vocabulary quiz, I asked them to take out their ELVNs. I then read out various words – "Give me the dictionary listing for 'tall'" etc.

If there is some doubt as to how well they know the word, they have to spell it out. If they get any part of the item wrong, they have to write down the whole listing correctly in ELVN. The activity is fast-paced and multi-sensoral – the students have to listen, speak, and write.

I follow up with a written quiz the next day. Multi-level learning, different approaches to the same material, afford students many different acquisition opportunities.

More tomorrow.

Continuing from the last post,

So.
Reality had set in.
"Should" had been shown the door.
Or had I shown myself the door and left "Should" behind?

I had already begun to write my own exercises. But they were still missing the mark. I persisted in making erroneous fundamental assumptions, chief of which was that the students could read Latin even if they only knew vocabulary and their grasp on morphology was tenuous.

I could not state with any conviction that my students understood what they were reading.

The patient was hemorrhaging, not simply bleeding.

What to do?

Sometimes the best thing is:
--Go back to the beginning.
--Take the reading passages provided in the text.
--Break them down into sentences.
--Break them down into phrases.
--Break them down into fragments.
--Break them down,
--Break them down again.
--Break them down once more.

Okay.
And then...what?

Rebuild them?
I guess I could do it that way...

Wait. It can't be. That's too easy. That's ridiculously simple.
(Besides, I didn't learn it that way....)
--Build them back up?
--Build them back up!

Start with....
What?

The verb.

I have had epiphanies before. But none like this. It was a revelation that bowled me over with its simplicity.

The solution was so obvious, it couldn't be seen.

Start with the bare essentials of a Latin sentence.
--Then add.
--Then add to that.
--Then add to that.
--And so on.

The fundamental assumption I had been making was that the students knew basically how to read a Latin sentence. They didn't. They'd been asked to break down sentences and paragraphs. But they had no real awareness of how the pieces fit together in the first place. Thus when they broke down the sentences, their understanding of the sentences fell apart.

You build a building from the ground up, not from the top down.
This holds with the construction of the Latin sentence as well.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

I've been told recently that my Latin text (displayed to your right just ostentatiously enough along with a couple of samplings, q.v.) has no particular niche into which it nestles neat 'n nice.

Guilty as charged. It doesn't.

I wrote Via Facilis for my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students.
Were 12-15 year olds my target learners?
Yes. And no.

I also teach graduate students at City University of New York in the Latin for Reading Knowledge program. Are they my target learners?
Yes. And no.

Who then could learn best from my text?
Anybody who wants to learn, or relearn, Latin.

What age group?
Anybody who wants to learn, or relearn, Latin.

Who is my target audience?
Anybody who wants to learn, or relearn, Latin.

(and Brutus is an honorable man)

What about the best and the brightest?
And they are...?
And the people who determine the identity of "the best and the brightest" are...?

(Rearing its head stage left, the Insidious Suggestion that only those who are most in touch with their mental processes should even hope to attempt so difficult an enterprise.)

All these beg the question:
Is Latin really that tough?

To which the response is:
Does it have to be?
Why?

And so:
To Niche or Not to Niche?
Not.

For a different perspective on what the publishing industry is missing by niche-ing, see my colleague Annette Kramer's learning lab. She's convinced - and is probably right - that although children's editors may have met virtual children, they never have met any actual ones.

In my last post, I wrote of the Absurd - how it powers sentences to make the mastery of Latin (in specific), and the understanding of language (in general), readily accessible. Students tend to progress to the point where they either accept the sentence on its own terms, or provide a context wherein the sentence has meaning for them. Or both.

This is a story about how some of my students opted for the latter path.

When I was in high school, that brilliant, technologically revolutionary masterpiece Star Wars came out, with its (no longer) cryptic moniker, "Episode IV - A New Hope". My friends and I learned the meaning of true devotion. We would wait on line - a line that went all the way down and around the block - to see that movie.

Not once.
Not twice.

I saw it twelve times.

My cousin (friend and fellow SW devotee) and I would write each other often (by snail-mail, the only type then available, unless you wanted FedEx) from our respective boarding schools. In those letters, a couple of lines addressed how life away from home was going; the rest was devoted to lines from Star Wars.

The letters would go on for pages.

Flash forward thirty or so years. In the interim, Episodes V and VI came out, followed by Episodes I, II, and III (these last regarded by SW purists to be uncanonical).

Yoda's manner of speech is readily recognized, predicate complements leading the way:
"Your father he is."
"Gone is young Skywalker, consumed by Darth Vader."
"Only pain will you find."
"Surprised are you?"
"Failed have I."
"Judge me by my size do you?"
"Remember what you have learned. Save you it can."

In their struggle in the Force, Masters Yoda, Windu, Kwaigon, Obi-Wan, and Darths Mogg, Sithius (good second declension Latinate ending) and Vader, bring to the fore the critical role that choice plays in a person's life: it will shape your destiny.

As a linguist and Classicist, I particularly appreciate that Yoda's speech patterns raise our awareness of word order, of syntax, of how language establishes meaning. Our effort to understand him is itself a linguistic exercise.

"If once down the path to the Dark Side you start, forever will it hold you."
"Anger, fear, hatred - the Dark Side are these."

Now in 2007 there has emerged another die-hard, ardent Star Wars following.
These are kids who saw all the Star Wars movies, maybe even in Episode I to VI order. They probably own the dvds and listen to the theme music on i-pods. As for us seasoned Star Warriors, we saw IV through VI first. Then, if we could get over our contempt - and ourselves - Episodes I through III. Or not.

I have seen them all.

That Yoda is one heck of a teacher.
Anyone could learn from him.
"Do. Or do not. There is no try."

So what?
This is what.

In the building blocks of chapter 7 of my Latin text, the final set of sentences translate as follows:

"The skill of the boy conquers his anger."
"The skill of the boy is conquered by anger."
"The boy's anger is conquered by skill."
"They are conquered by the the boy's skill and anger."
"Skill and anger are conquered by the boy."

These sentences could qualify as absurd.
A context would be helpful.
Student, help thyself.
This year, my seventh grade students did.

And what might their context of choice be?

Star Wars

Of course.

Yoda, Master of Jedi Masters, whose favorite metaphor for a padawan's progression in the Force is Path or Road.
Anakin Skywalker, possessed of skill and anger in massive measure.
His was a journey from the Dark Side into Light.
Even the Emperor, Sith though he be, uses similar language:

"I feel your anger. Good. Gooood. I am unarmed. Go ahead. Take your light sabre. Strike me down, and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete."

The Road.
An apt metaphor.
Star Wars.
An unexpected context.
An old and welcome friend.

Even if one seventh grader does think that he's one of the Sand People.

And that I'm the Emperor.

Last week - directly below this post, actually - I commented on the sentiments expressed by the authors of The National Curriculum regarding modern languages.

This is That Post, Part II, Paragraph II of Modern Languages:

"Learning languages gives pupils opportunities to develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and to express themselves with increasing confidence, independence and creativity. They explore the similarities and differences between other languages and English and learn how language can be manipulated and applied in different ways. The development of communication skills, together with understanding of the structure of language, lay the foundations for future study of other languages and support the development of literacy skills in a pupil's own language.

I'm a Latinist/Classicist/linguist.
I agree with the sentiments of this paragraph wholeheartedly.
The question is how to effectively achieve its purposes.

Here is my response:
Learn Latin.

"But Latin isn't a modern language."
"True."
"It's also dead."
"Also true."
"So?"
"So, word one: Frisp."
"Frisp? Never heard of it."'
"French
Romanian
Italian
Spanish
Portuguese

Which are all recognized languages of the European Union.

We also refer to them as Romance Languages."
"So?"
"So the structural basis of these languages is Latin.
Learn Latin, and you exponentially increase your capability of learning a Romance Language."

"Okay, but what about the other EU languages? Latin can't help with those, can it?"
"Actually, it can."
"How?"
"Many of the languages of the EU are inflected."
"Infected?"
"No, 'inflected'. A language that is inflected establishes meaning by changing the forms of its words, particularly nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs. The form of the words shows their function in a sentence."
"And?"
"And Latin is also inflected.
Learn Latin, and you exponentially increase your capability of learning a non-Romance language."

"But it's still not spoken, right?"
"Right."
"So how does that address the "listening, speaking, reading, and writing" part of the paragraph?"

"In terms of listening and speaking, it doesn't."
"But isn't that a problem?"
"Actually, it's a solution in conundrum's clothing."
"You'd better explain."
"Sure. When students learn a foreign language, it often happens that their proficiencies - speaking and listening - mask their deficiencies - reading and writing."
"So they can't read or write."
"And how would you rate the literacy of someone who can't read or write?"
"Low?"
"There is a technical term for it. A person who cannot read or write his own language is 'illiterate'."
"So much for national literacy."
"You said it."
"But how does Latin help deal with this problem?"
"Which problem?"
"The literacy problem."
"With which language?"
"Better start with foreign languages."
"Fair enough. You have to ask why students find reading and writing difficult in the first instance."
"Okay, consider it asked."
"They find reading and writing difficult because they have done very little of those exercises with their own language. To really read and to really write, you have to more than inherently know a language; you have to understand it. You have to understand how words relate, how they fit together to make sentences, ideas, concepts, etc. You have to have done time, so to speak, working with the nuts and bolts of language - its grammar, its syntax, its vocabulary. To write it out long-hand, type it, chant it, play with it. Become friends with it. Writing is the tactile recording of literacy. Reading allows you to see how others go through that experience. Literacy is, in effect, the expertise with which you deliberately handle your own language. So if you are going to master another language, you will have to spend some serious time with your own."

"But why Latin then?"
"Because when students learn Latin, they cannot hide behind a good ear and convincing accent. They must focus on the other two aspects: reading and writing. Latin forces them to account for everything. That, in turn, forces them to account for everything in English. Which reenforces what they are doing with language in Latin. It becomes a benevolent cycle, feeding on itself."

"So, you're saying that Latin is good because it addresses reading and writing almost exclusively?"
"Basically, yes."
"So it makes students hyper-aware of their choice of words, and why they are saying what they are saying?"
"Yes. It turns a potentially passive exercise into an active one. It requires that they develop critical tools of linguistic discernment."

"And the student who takes Latin will be ready to study a modern language in all aspects?"
"Yes. They will be happy to be speaking a foreign language, but it will not be so completely different in terms of vocabulary or structure. They will have already been there. They will be jazzed up about going forward in their study of language."

"And this same student will have done a tremendous amount with the building blocks of English, too? All that grammar and vocabulary?"
"Yes."

"But doesn't that take care of two major concerns of the government?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there's the national literacy recommendations, and there's the modern language entitlement, too."

"Right."

"Wouldn't a serious study of Latin help students, particularly at Key Stage 2, make significant strides in both these areas?"

"Let me get this straight. You're saying that you think that the study of Latin at...?"
"Key Stage 2."
"What's that mean in American English?"
"Ages 7 to 11."
"Oh, right. Okay, so you're saying that you think that the study of Latin at Key Stage 2 will facilitate both a growing mastery of English and set the stage for the thorough learning of Modern Languages? As required by the UK government?"

"Yes."

"I couldn't have said it any better. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

drg

I've been thinking about a poem I could write about cagse and what it does in the UK.

First I wrote this:

cagse's Latin program's cool,
it's got patterns for all to see,
it gives kids the blueprint
for National Literacy.

Yeah, I know.
A bit tooooo.....
Or maybe not enough.....
Let's just say, I wasn't thrilled with it, either.
So I wrote some more.

Here it is.

cagse gets Latin
into UK schools of State ilk,
we're not too concerned
with Public school silk.

At Key Stage 2
year five's our first stop
the structure of language
is our priority top.

In Latin your students
will see by and by
that knowing it well
they'll have learned how to fly.

Their minds will be honed
to the sharpness of a blade
they'll learn how to think,
not just grub for a grade.

Your students will excel
well beyond what's expected
and in them your wisdom
will be brilliantly reflected.

Latin, we aver,
is everyone's gain
it relieves state schools
of literacy pains.

It's not just for the "elite"
or "the best and the brightest",
though who those folks may be
I haven't the slightest.

On this let's be frank,
we'll cost you some dosh,
but it's wisely invested,
not wasted on bosh.

For the national requirements,
walls though they be,
will be by your students
breached - no, smashed - easily.

So for Stage 2 and beyond
cagse sets schools up right;
use our program, head teachers -
you won't stay up nights.

drg

Fourteen months ago, I wrote the following entry for this blog regarding the years right after college graduation - years I would never want to experience again. Still.

"...I was living in Boston, specifically in Allston.
And it was here that I learned an amazing lesson.
From a plant.

My apartment was pretty nice, aside from (or next to) the roaches. With it came a plant which the previous owner had thoughtfully left for me. Or had simply forgotten.

I had no idea what to do with a plant.
I'd never really had one.
Still, I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.
So I just let it sit there, a soon to be no longer living memorial to my directionless existence.
The plant's leaves died, and so, seemingly, did it.
I could relate.

Then one day, I decided, What the heck, I'll water the plant.
Yes, it needed it. But I think I needed it more.
And besides, I had nothing to lose.
And everything.

A few days went by, a week, a month.
I kept up my daily ministrations.
I even got a spray bottle so I could keep its leaves moist.
And the plant - an English Ivy, I think - came back to life.
And began to grow.
And grow. And grow.

When I finally left Boston for my first teaching job, the plant was lush, its vines tumbling over the sides of its pot to the floor seven feet below, an emerald cascade.

I had never felt such an enormous sense of accomplishment.
But it was more than that.
I myself was pivotal in the turn around of this plant's life.
I mattered.

And in the simple act of giving this living thing the chance to grow, I had done the same thing for myself.

I did not then fathom the plant's gift to me. Nor did I see how great a role it played in my quest for the meaning of meaning. I didn't even know I was on a quest.

That plant may not have been key in my becoming a teacher. But it was instrumental in my staying one.

As I said. I didn't know then.
Now I do."

So, yes. Now I will say this, quoting my buddy Marcus Tullius Cicero (it's up to you readers to figure out how it applies to what follows):

"Qui ipse sibi sapiens prodesse non quit, nequiquam sapit."

Translation:

"The wise man who cannot help himself is wise in vain."

Now.
One thing I neglected to mention in that story:

I didn't just leave Boston.

I also left the plant.

That always bothered me.
The leaving the plant part, that is.
(Leaving Boston was easy.
I'm a Yankee fan, for goodness sake.)

Nagged at me.
Niggled.
Still does.

So why am I bringing this up now, you ask?
"Yes. That would be nice to know."
Fair enough.
Recently and with increasing vigor, I've been working with my education consultancy in the UK.
Coming over here every month, working with all the teachers for a week or so each time.

But somewhere in the back of my mind has been lurking the thought that I would teach again next year.

And that it would be in an independent school in the US.
And that it would be full time.
I had already spoken with various placement services, and had received phone calls regarding my availability.
I even went through an interview for a paternity leave position for April and May of this year.
It was okay.
Even good.
But it was lacking.
Or rather, I was preoccupied.
I could talk the talk, even walk the walk.
But my heart was nowhere in sight.

How could I just be a substitute teacher with this school when I have my own work to do?
My own teachers to work with?
I was offered that position.
I turned it down.
I couldn't in good conscience accept it.

cagse requires commitment.
Full Commitment.
From Everyone.
My executive director is the best there is.
But she can't do it herself.
My pro story teller is fabulous.
She can't do it all, either.
My head of Latin Programs is tremendous.
She can't do it by herself, either.

Then there are the teachers themselves.
They are hardworking, dedicated, enthusiastic.
Most of them are new to teaching.
Even those who aren't are new to my book.

'Everyone' includes me.

But I still wasn't quite getting it.
Recently, I had a phone call from the folks at Dalton School.
They wanted me to come in for an interview.
I said I would.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could not do it.
So I cancelled.
Why?
Because I already have a job.
I also removed my name from placement services regarding further consideration for the foreseeable future from any school.

Why?
Because I finally got it.

I (still) already have a job.

And what a job it is.

The work we are doing over here is nothing short of critical.
To the UK's national curriculum, certainly.
But even more to education itself.
We have here a new, powerful mechanism which will serve as a paradigm for real teaching and learning in the form of our Latin program.

cagse can be the cutting edge, not just on it.
Can shape vibrant, energetic, thoughtful teaching and learning for decades to come.

We are Compelling.

We put the R E A L back into L E A R N i n g.

But for cagse to take wing,
it is up to me.
And so, here I fly.

So why the reference to that earlier blog?

Haven't you figured it out yet?

Simple.

I've come back for my plant.

drg

"Good evening."
"To you, as well. Did we shave?"
"What? Oh, you mean the gauze. Or lack of it. Well, no, but my nose has healed considerably. Nice to breathe again through that left nostril. Haven't used it for forty-two years."
"That must be a strange sensation."
"It's quite liberating, actually."
"I'll bet."
"You'd win, so I'm not laying odds. Anyway, when we last were having our discussion, you asked a critical question."
"I did?"
"That wasn't it."
"Oh, right. I remember now."
"Will you reask it?"
"Surely. I asked, 'How do we know when a noun is acting as a subject or a direct object?' "
"Have you thought about it since then?"
"No, that wasn't the question I asked. I remember clearly."
"No, I mean, have you thought about an answer to your question which you just right now brought our attention back to."
"Oh. Well, yes."
"And you have an answer?"
"I said I thought about an answer. I didn't say I had one."
"Shall we conjure up that sentence which gave rise to your question?"
"Good idea."
"Our sentence was, 'Cows eat...'"
"'grass'!"
"Right. Did we decide anything about the function of 'Cows' in the sentence?"
"Yes, that it was a noun acting as the subject, i.e., the doer of the action."
"Right. Did we decide anything else?"
"We determined that 'eat' was the verb, i.e., the action that the subject, 'Cows', was performing."
"Okay. And?"
"And that 'grass' was the direct object of the verb 'eat' because it was what the 'cow', the subject, was eating."

"Let me ask you if you would agree to the following as a summing up of what we discussed last time:
1. Nouns are things (or persons or places)
2. Nouns can act as subjects, i.e., doers of the action of the verb
3. Nouns can act as Direct Objects (i.e., direct receivers of the
action of the verb)
4. Verbs are action words, i.e., words that denote action performed
by Nouns acting as subjects on nouns acting as direct objects.

Anything else?"
"No, that's about it."
"Okay. So your question then was, in a nutshell: How To Decide?"
"How to decide what?"
"Well, if a noun can act either as a subject of a verb, or a direct object of a verb, how do you know when you see a noun how it's acting?"
"I need some help here."
"Okay, let's bring back our sentence."
"Let's."
" 'Cows eat grass.' "
"So much is clear."
"How many nouns?"
"Two."
"Subject?"
" 'Cows'."
"Direct Object?"
" 'grass'."
"Verb?"
" 'eat' ."
"Where is the subject placed?"
"At the beginning of the sentence?"
"Yes, but let's be even more specific."
"Okay. Directly in front of the verb."
"Correct. How about the direct object?"
"That's directly after the verb."
"Correct. Do you know the answer to your question yet?"
"Sort of...."
"Take our sentence again."
" 'Cows eat grass.' "
"Switch 'Cows' and 'grass'."
" 'Grass eats Cows.' "
"Do those two sentences mean the same thing?"
"Don't they?"

"Look at them closely:
'Cows eat grass'
'Grass eats Cows'
Are they the same?"

"Well, no."
"What did I change?"
"The placement of 'grass' and 'cows'."
"What happened?"
" 'grass' became the subject; 'cows' became the direct object."
"What happened to the placement of the verb?"
"Nothing. It stayed the same."
"So what are we saying about where words appear in a sentence?"
"That it means a lot."
"It actually means everything. Where a word falls in a sentence determines its function in the sentence, and therefore, the force of that sentence."
"Could you summarize?"
"Absolutely. Word order tells you word function. An English sentence is completely dependent upon its word order to establish meaning."
"Are you sure?"
"Let me rephrase. 'Cows grass eat.' "
"What does that mean?"
"Exactly."