News Detail
In The Classroom: Latin Immersion
If you step into a first through fourth grade Latin class at JH Classical Academy, you might see students playing Magister Dicit (the Latin version of “Simon says”), or enthusiastically participating in a responsive Latin story. That’s because the elementary Latin curriculum at JHCA uses an immersion method of language learning. Students engage with classroom commands, stories, vocabulary activities, and reading all in Latin.
If you step into a first through fourth grade Latin class at JH Classical Academy, you might see students playing Magister Dicit (the Latin version of “Simon says”), or enthusiastically participating in a responsive Latin story. That’s because the elementary Latin curriculum at JHCA uses an immersion method of language learning. Students engage with classroom commands, stories, vocabulary activities, and reading all in Latin.
Miss Rock, who heads the immersion Latin program at JHCA, has attended the David Blaine Ray immersion language training for the past two summers. She has created a Latin program for the school that combines modern immersion technique with the ancient language of Latin.
The results speak for themselves: students clamor to answer questions in Latin, and enthusiastically greet their teacher with “Salve Magistra Saxa!” They also excitedly say hello to each other and their teachers in Latin in the halls and at lunch.
Through constant hearing, speaking, and reading of Latin, students are able to compose Latin sentences. They also translate a chapter book, Lingua Latina. This is a chapter book about a Roman family written entirely in Latin, which progressively teaches new vocabulary and grammar.
The most important part of the Latin immersion curriculum is storytelling in Latin. Through call and response storytelling, students learn to understand and speak Latin. Constant repetition of vocabulary and a step-by-step introduction of new grammar ensure a painless acquisition of the language. Gaining a feel for the language and an instinctive knowledge of grammar sets an excellent foundation for the middle school Latin curriculum.
In middle school, the students will progress to two excellent traditional textbooks Ecce Romani and Latin for the New Millennium. By the end of 8th grade, they will have learned the entirety of Latin grammar and will be ready to progress to the un-adapted works of Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil.
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Miss Rock, who heads the immersion Latin program at JHCA, has attended the David Blaine Ray immersion language training for the past two summers. She has created a Latin program for the school that combines modern immersion technique with the ancient language of Latin.
The results speak for themselves: students clamor to answer questions in Latin, and enthusiastically greet their teacher with “Salve Magistra Saxa!” They also excitedly say hello to each other and their teachers in Latin in the halls and at lunch.
Through constant hearing, speaking, and reading of Latin, students are able to compose Latin sentences. They also translate a chapter book, Lingua Latina. This is a chapter book about a Roman family written entirely in Latin, which progressively teaches new vocabulary and grammar.
The most important part of the Latin immersion curriculum is storytelling in Latin. Through call and response storytelling, students learn to understand and speak Latin. Constant repetition of vocabulary and a step-by-step introduction of new grammar ensure a painless acquisition of the language. Gaining a feel for the language and an instinctive knowledge of grammar sets an excellent foundation for the middle school Latin curriculum.
In middle school, the students will progress to two excellent traditional textbooks Ecce Romani and Latin for the New Millennium. By the end of 8th grade, they will have learned the entirety of Latin grammar and will be ready to progress to the un-adapted works of Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil.
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