“Living Latin”: Caution Warranted
Article by Andrew Ellison
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Not too long ago, I wrote a Cana blog post offering some very general guidance about the teaching of Latin in classical schools, something which, 35 years ago, was a fairly uncontroversial topic. There was ONE method to teach Latin, the grammar-translation-analytical method that had educated multiple generations of Classicists. There was a very limited range of available textbooks: grammars originally printed in the 19th century were still in general circulation, and Wheelock, dating to the 1950s, was considered quite modern.
Things are very different today. With the growth of classical education, not only has there has been an explosion of textbooks and new editions of classical texts, but there exists now an often-stark division between the proponents of the traditional teaching methods, and the avid advocates of what was once a fringe phenomenon but which is now a revolutionary movement, the movement variously called “Living Latin”, spoken Latin, immersion, or “the Natural Method”.
In my old post, I argue for a balanced, not fanatically one-sided view of that controversy, and I shall continue working out these thoughts in what follows.
My friend and colleague at the University of Dallas Dr. Laura Eidt has created books, lesson plans, exercises, and A/V resources for elementary school teachers of immersion Latin, a rich program called Latin Through Stories that is already in use in a variety of public and private schools as well as in home school cooperatives. Like a great many teachers of primary and secondary school Latin, your author included, she is a knower and lover of Latin, but not an academically-trained classical philologist, and in her professional world she not infrequently encounters skepticism about immersion Latin from colleagues who are traditionally trained. Dr. Eidt recently posted a thoughtful and thorough piece over on ClassicalEd Review in response to skeptics and critics at all levels.
In making the case for the “Natural Method” against common objections to it, Dr. Eidt argues for the following propositions:
Latin is not essentially “different” from modern languages and thus requires no essentially different method of instruction.
Natural Method Latin instruction is highly effective in preparing students to read and engage deeply with canonical classical texts; immersive, oral Latin is conducive of reading, not contrary to it.
Fluency/mastery of spoken Latin need not be present in the effective teacher of the Natural Method.
The Natural Method is not essentially opposed to the systematic and rigorous teaching of Latin grammar.
Didactic, memorize-and-drill methods of instruction in general aren’t as effective as we think they are.
The Natural Method of second language acquisition can be effective with much less time per day than the every-waking-hour immersion experience of a young child acquiring his native tongue.
I would like to express my general agreement with these propositions, as I have found them to be generally true in my experience as a student and teacher of Latin and as a fluent speaker and teacher of a second, non-native language as well. I also would like to offer some qualified agreement with theses 2, 3, and 6, including some strong words of caution on these points for those coming at the Natural Method for the first time, perhaps riding upon clouds of enthusiasm for a new trend. Just as surely as experimental medical treatments are undertaken with the gravest sense of responsibility and in fidelity to the Hippocratic oath Do no harm, great caution is warranted when attempting things upon the souls of children which we ourselves have only read about and never observed, let alone experienced.
Proposition 2: “Spoken Latin instruction is highly effective in preparing students to read and engage deeply with canonical classical texts.”
My qualification and caution would be this: the right kind of spoken Latin instruction is a highly effective, and may even be the best preparation for reading Livy, Catullus, and Virgil. But mediocre Living Latin may be much worse than the old-fashioned grammar translation methods even at their most middling. To be effective at preparing students for reading the most difficult and rewarding works of Latin literature, immersive Latin teaching has to do two things. First, it must move very quickly into language generation activities for the students. That is, the teacher must quickly put parroting and recitation and unidirectional imperative activities like “Simonis dicit” (Simon says) in a supporting role, and get the students producing speech, performing transformations (“Are you sitting?” “Yes, I am sitting.”), and disassembling given statements (“The dog bit the boy yesterday”) by answering every question about what is being said (“What did the dog do?” “Who did the dog bite?” “When did the dog bite the boy”?). The second piece that must be present if Natural Method Latin is to advance students most effectively towards reading authentic ancient texts is that, from very early on, it must be anchored in the reading of much simpler, yet increasingly more demanding, pedagogical texts. From very early on, the Natural Method teacher must have students reading, and then speaking and writing in Latin about what they read, starting with the equivalents of “Dick and Jane” or “See Spot Run”, moving on to longer yet still simple narratives, both fragmentary and continuous, and ending in things like paraphrases of Ovid and Livy, retellings of the Aeneid, and even authentic ancient texts like the Vulgate.
The failure to have students extensively reading simpler texts before attempting to access Caesar or Cicero has long been one of the weaknesses of the traditional grammar-translation method as generally practiced; the leap from the final chapter of Wheelock and its last dozen exercises straight to the First Catilinarian (as I experienced in high school) is analogous to giving intermediate English language learners in Beijing or Prague Paradise Lost and King Lear after two semesters. The Natural Method has its own tendencies towards an ephemeral classroom orality that floats away in the breeze when it is not anchored in reading from the beginning, and if it is not practiced with longer and more challenging readings through the years, it will fall well short of the goal of preparing students for the greatest Latin literature.
Proposition 3: “Fluency/mastery of spoken Latin need not be present in the effective teacher of the Natural Method”
This is the thesis which I come closest to disagreeing with, the one requiring the most qualification if it is not to be dangerous. Yes, something like near-native fluency in Latin is exceedingly rare, and it is unreasonable to expect this from every teacher. But I believe that the message that needs to be communicated to would-be-teachers of Living Latin is not the sanguine “You don’t have to be perfect!”, but rather the sober and cautious “Your spoken Latin has to be pretty dang good to even consider giving this a try.” Imagine an American teacher of French who drawls la langue française with an exaggerated Texan accent and an infantile working vocabulary of only 100 words, mostly about shopping, weather, and school; or a halting Spanish instructor who can’t roll Rs and who gets noun genders wrong as often as right; or a teacher of English to Ukrainian war refugees who says “Sally like to read. Does you?” Like begets like. Do no harm.
It is not enough to be of stout and cheerful heart: the immersion language teacher must be nearly flawless in the orality he attempts and must scrupulously avoid reaching beyond his own competence in front of students. This is a high bar, and less than half of the classroom teachers of Living Latin who I have observed can clear it.
Proposition 6: “The Natural Method of second language acquisition can be effective with much less time per day than the every-waking-hour immersion experience of a child acquiring his native tongue.”
This is absolutely spot-on, and it needs to be understood by anyone venturing to express opinions about the Natural Method. However, most primary and secondary teachers of Latin, never mind Classical school administrators who make decisions about curriculum and pedagogy, have not had acquired oral fluency in any language other than their native tongue, which means they can only vaguely imagine the process of immersive language learning and the swiftness with which it delivers results.
To the developed, non-infant mind that has already mastered a native language, the second one comes with much greater ease, like the water of recent rains running swiftly through natural channels carved in rock over aeons. My own experience in achieving fluency in a second (modern) language is that, after several years of spotty, non-immersion instruction at the high school and collegiate level (3-4 hours per week, with summers and holidays off), a single month of every-waking-hour immersion while living abroad was all it took to achieve oral, aural, and lexile fluency, though much vocabulary remained to be learned.
But here’s the rub: there is surely some critical mass of instructional time that must be present in order for the Natural Method to begin to yield its results. This critical minimum minutes per week may be larger for the Natural Method than it is for the traditional didactic method.
As I have written about before, many classical schools are unwilling to devote even an hour per week to Latin instruction, no matter the type. And given these limitations, my hunch is that 20 minutes of average non-immersion instruction per week will beget more knowledge, even if it is not much, than 20 minutes of average immersion via the Natural Method. A couple of classes of didactic, explanatory instruction can easily result in some immediately assessable individual fragments of knowledge; two periods of even excellent immersion Latin will not do the same. Furthermore, as with inadequate time, I suspect the same is the case when it comes to inadequate teaching: that a poor application of the Natural Method results in no knowledge, while poor traditional instruction results in at least some. Corruptio optimi pessima, and lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
The work of teaching is practical, and the “best” of anything is always in short supply in the very real world of schooling. At some schools, organizational decisions have been made which squeeze the time available for Latin instruction beyond the point where the best is possible. Oftentimes, the teaching skill and subject knowledge in the building are not adequate to the task of going all-in on Natural Method Latin, and while there are more training opportunities available now than just a decade ago, it is always difficult for schools to commit the time and funds that would allow teachers to avail themselves of such.
In practical matters, a modest thing done well is better than the best thing bungled. As such, teachers and decision makers in schools should be cautious about what is in their power to achieve in the teaching of Latin.
Andrew Ellison has been a leader in the classical liberal education movement since 1997, having served as a high school teacher, headmaster, and charter school administrator for 26 years in two states before moving into higher education. He is a Senior Writer for Cana Academy and posts regularly about classical education and other topics on LinkedIn. Ellison is currently Vice President of Enrollment Management at the University of Dallas. He writes from Irving, Texas.