Language Learning and Methodology.

The piece of research cited below is interesting, in that is seems to reinforce the idea that a learner must do a lot of reading in order to learn how to structure a language.

It also illustrates the danger of using - in a language such as Latin - adapted texts, unless the learner is explicitly made aware that the texts are adapted to English word order, as there is a danger that this word order will be generalised.

Thus,if an adapted text is used - for example, in an interlinear - it is vital that the student moves to the original text as soon as possible.

The text is also encouraging for teachers - for example, the rule in Latin that an adjective always follows a monosyllable probably need not be explicitly taught. With enough examples, the rule will be learned.
We can say bonum vinum, or we can say vinum bonum (with a preference to the adjective coming before the noun in many cases) , but bonum sal is always sal bonum.

New Research Demonstrates Language Learners' Creativity

ScienceDaily (Apr. 4, 2011) — New research published in Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), shows that language learning goes well beyond simple imitation, and in fact that language learners are quite creative and remarkably smart. Not only are learners able to generalize grammatical restrictions to new words in a category -- in this case, made-up adjectives -- but they also do not learn these restrictions in situations where they can be attributed to some irrelevant factor.

But how is the restriction learned in the first place? Drs. Boyd and Goldberg show that witnessing ablim used after nouns (i.e., postnominally, as in the hamster that's ablim) makes participants even more likely to avoid its use before nouns in their own utterances. While this may sound like learners are simply imitating the adjective uses they see in the language to which they are exposed, the authors go on to show that learning is savvy, and only occurs under certain conditions.This point is driven home in an article, "Learning what not to say: The role of statistical preemption and categorization in a-adjective production," to be published in the March 2011 issue of Language. When authors Jeremy Boyd of the University of Illinois and Adele Goldberg of Princeton University asked adult speakers to produce sentences containing made-up adjectives like ablim, they found that people avoided using ablim before the noun it modified, unconsciously treating it like real adjectives that sound similar -- e.g., afraid, which also cannot be used before the noun it modifies (i.e., the afraid cat is a less preferred formulation than the cat that's afraid). This result indicates that speakers readily generalize a restriction against this use -- referred to as "prenominal" -- to adjectives that they've never heard before.

For example, in an analogous learning situation, when children see an adult with his right hand in a cast play a video game using just his left, they do not assume that there is a restriction on how the game can be played -- i.e., that one can only use one's left hand. They immediately infer that the adult would use his right hand (or both hands) if he could, but that the cast is preventing him from doing so. In similar fashion, when a new group of participants witnessed ablim used postnominally, but this time in a context in which there was a reason for its postnominal use that had nothing to do with ablim itself, participants did not learn a restriction against ablim's prenominal use. This indicates that learners carefully evaluate the input they receive, and that learning only occurs when the input is deemed informative.

This research demonstrates that speakers do not learn purely by imitating others, but bring sophisticated and creative resources to bear on the process. This is especially true when it comes to language, where the fact that children routinely produce sentences to which they have never been exposed indicates that they are not simply imitating what they hear.

I'm about 20% on my way through Bellum Helveticum

by Karavinka on 2011-02-07, 20:35

http://www.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=32605

My work contract expired as of Jan. 31 and I've been sleeping a lot since then. And the Chinese New Year fell on the first week of February this year so I had to waste my time visiting relatives etc, losing the precious time that I could have used to... not to learn Latin but to be with my gf.  I still spent some time with Latin and I wanted to make a note before I take off to Jeju, a resort island off the southern coast, in a few hours.

Well, anyways. As of Feb. 8:

* Wheelock's Latin, Loci Antiqui and Loci Immutati : I read through the passages while making a vocab list. Didn't spend too much time with this, though. Both these sections and the reader volume seem too heavy on Cicero imho.

* Chamber's Latin Alive and Well : finished! It is actually awful like Wheelock, and many sentences and some reading passages are shared between the two. However, Chambers was nice enough to add review sheets (with answer keys) every few lessons, and he has more English to Latin exercises. (I don't think I just have the confidence unless I can produce it somehow) Most readings are adapted from classicals, heavy on Livy and Caesar.

* I'm about 20% on my way through Bellum Helveticum, a Caesar-based textbook available online with podcasts from Latinum. There are as many (if not more) English to Latin than just passively reading Latin, starting from a simple noun clause to full sentences. The podcast is helpful as well: though I'm not intent on speaking Latin, I still want to feel at least somewhat natural when I read out loud. I never knew there was elision in Latin. (Gallia est .. to Galliest.., according to the podcast.)



@KingHarvest: Yes, Eutropius reads differently from, say, Nepos or Caesar. But I'm still glad that it exists and there must have been some reason when the Renaissance schoolmasters picked it as the pupil's first Latin author... Thanks for the comment, I'll take a look at Augustine.

Bilingual Readings on Latinum

In 2011 I started a new section of Latinum - composed of bilingual readings of the Classic authors, using the system of texts produced by Hamilton and Underwood, and those produced by John Taylor for the University College London.
These are the links to the current selection - comprising several hours of audio material.

BILINGUAL AUDIO

1. Bilingual Caesar - Invasion of Britain 
2. Bilingual Celsus - De Medicina 
3. Bilingual Cicero - Orations 
4. Bilingual Nepos - De Viris Illustribus 
5. Bilingual Ovid - Metamorphoses 
6. Bilingual Virgil - Eclogues 

These texts have been edited with the syntax adjusted to make an English interlinear possible - thus they are to be considered as intermediate texts, and once the listener has used them to get to grips with the material, they should commence reading the original text, with the words in the intended order.

Bilinguals and Language Learning

An interesting piece of research came out a couple of days ago, about those who use a second language, and perception.

I think it is of great interest to second language teachers: especially those who focus on translation - it should, I think, give pause for thought.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110314132531.htm

Reading over this article, my conclusion was that those students who remain in the 'translation zone' with their Latin - only comprehending it through translation, rendering the Latin into English, and then processing the translation, not the Latin, as their primary source text, are greatly retarded in their ability to understand the subtle gradations of semantic meaning -  the true meaning of Latin words - whose  sematic properties only become apparent through use within the language, on its own terms. 

Constant translation and working with a text in translation would,I think, hamper this process. Perhaps it would take place, but imperfectly, as semantic fields between languages only imperfectly overlap.

This applies I suspect to grammatical structures as much, if not more than to vocabulary.

For example,  the use of the ablative - constantly translating ablatives into their myriad of sub categories - attempting to shoe-horn them into English - probably retard the student's ability to reach an intuitive understanding of ablative usage within Latin - and this understanding only comes through the mechanics of the language itself, on its own terms, without translation.

Through, as many have said, "much reading".

Now, I am not saying some translation is not needed - a modicum of translation can speed up the learning process at the beginning. Interlinear translations can even speed up the process of intial language acquisition, be enabling the student to get through screeds of text in a short time - but the translation is necessarily limited - It can give the 'ball park' of new vocabulary. Some words transpose neatly. Canis and Dog, for example. Many key concepts do perhaps not, such as res publica, virtus, and a host of others. 

Any thoughts?

Evan.

Latinum Update

A few milestones were passed this week - Firstly, my booklet 'Declensions' has turned out to be the most popular title on the Tar Heel reader website, being over 50% more popular than the next title on the list according to Gary Bishop, who runs the site. It says something, that a dry book on declensions has beaten the Alphabet, Obama, and Lady Gaga!

Here is the list of the most popular titles.

1. Declensions
2. Our First Black President
3. The ABC Book
4. Lady Gaga
5. The ABC Book (yes there are two ABC books at the top of the list)
6. I am Michael Jordan
7. Disney Princesses
8. Three Little Kittens
9. Cupcakes

Secondly, my YouTube Latin course just passed its 200,000th  upload view.

Schola now has 1,746 members, and continues to grow at a steady pace.

Latinum is also still proving popular,with between 3 and 5 thousand file downloads per day. Total downloads since inception in 2007 is well over 7 million.

De Vestibulo Comenii

De Vestibulo Comenii

Paene cotidie emissiones electronicas ausculto latinas quas gratis praebet auditoribus ille industriosissimus et bene in interreti notus iuvenis Britannus cuius nomen Evan der Millner vel Molendarius. Has emissiones vel pod-casts invenietis ad I-Pod vestrum aptatas apud I-Tunes sub titulo "Latinum." Ab variis fontibus deducit locos suos Evan noster, amabilis fautor rerum classicarum et, ut videtur, humanisticarum, nam apud situm eius nuper inveni PDF antigraphum illius libri scholaris nomine "Vestibulum Ianuae Latinitatis" a Johanne Amos Comenio conscripti. Libellus quam pulcher est! Exemplar Molendarii Latinas sententias praebet iuxta sententias hungarice versas, quae Latinae procul dubio erunt utilissimae discipulis linguae archaeograecae, quo sermone hic vertam in usu alumnorum carissimorum.

Introitus    ἡ εἴσοδος

1. Venite pueri.            Ἔλθετε, παῖδες,
2. Discite latinam linguam,        μάθετε γλῶτταν Ἀττικήν
3. Pulchram et elegantem.        καλὴν καὶ κομψήν.
4. Comprehendite,            Συλλάβετε,
5. pro vestro captu,            ὥς γε κατὰ ὑμᾶς,
6. varias res,                ποικίλα πράγματα,
7. sapientiae semina.            τὰ τῆς ἐπιστήμης σπέρματα.
8. Deus vos iuvabit,            Θεὸς συνεργήσει,
9. praeceptores amabunt,        οἱ διδάσκαλοι φιλήσουσιν,
10. alii laudabunt,            οἱ ἄλλοι ἐπαινήσουσιν,
11. ipsi gaudebitis.            ὑμεῖς αὐτοὶ χαιρήσετε.
12. Si principium difficile,        Εἰ χαλεπὴ ἡ ἀρχ    ή,
13. medium erit facile,            τὸ μέσον ἔσται ῥᾲδιον ποιῆσαι,
14. finis iucundus.            τὸ τέλος ἡδύ.

Language Teaching in Ancient Rome

A historical perspective on Latin/Greek teaching : Evan der Millner This topic is a very wide ranging one – and a brief essay such as this, can only hope to cover the subject giving the barest of outlines. In this essay, I will mainly concern myself with what could be called the Rudiments of language education. I will also point out that some 'new' methods are actually not new at all. We are fortunate in knowing rather a lot about how the Romans went about teaching their children.

Rome was a bilingual society – so education always involved an element of second language teaching. For contemporary foreign language teachers, the surviving evidence is fascinating. Most of the direct evidence we have for language teaching dates from around the end of the third century, but we have an abundance of indirect evidence as well – fragments of papyri, ostraca and wax tablets, a syllabary inscribed on a tomb wall in Egypt that had been turned into a classroom, and, the most surprising survival of all, that body of texts now known as the hermeneumata.From around the same time period, we have the elementary Latin grammar of Donatus, which was composed for Roman boys who already spoke Latin. My discussion of Latin education will keep returning to the hermeneumata, and Donatus, whose echoes keep reverberating through the curriculum down the centuries, except for a brief hiatus during the 'philological period' of the nineteenth century.

What were the hermeneumata? They were standardised texts,used across the Empire to teach Roman boys Latin or Greek, depending on which end of the Empire they found themselves in. They appeared to serve two purposes – they acted as primers in the child's native language, and were also used to teach a second language. The texts we have are bilingual in Latin and Greek. Most of the examples come from the Western Empire. However, we can see the uniformity of these texts across the Empire, as a Greek-Latin-Coptic example survives, that is almost identical to one of the European versions. Although the earliest surviving text we can date is from September 11 207 AD, the standardised format of the manuscripts would suggest that the methodology – probably originated by Greek pedagogues - was already well established by this time. The hermeneumata contain a number of elements – vocabulary lists for everyday life arranged by theme, vocabulary lists  arranged alphabetically, simple dialogues designed to activate the vocabulary, narratives, and simplified fables. The dialogues aim to relate to a boy's everyday life, while also inculcating the virtues of good citizenship – piety and virtue. We know that authors such as Aphthonius especially wrote simplified versions of fables for inclusion in primary textbooks. (N. Holzberg 2002, The Ancient Fable) These, and short, often humorous dialogues and narratives, were the elementary literature used in the Roman schoolroom. (Anglo-Saxon Conversations, Gwara and Porter. 1997)

Basic education started off with the alphabet, followed by the learning of syllables – extensive tables of syllables were composed. (Bonner,1977, Education in Ancient Rome). Each consonant was in turn combined with the five vowels – ba be bi bo bu, ca ce ci co cu, and so on, through the alphabet. This practice originated, once again, with the Greeks. An excellent reconstruction of a Roman syllable table can be found in the Institutionum Grammaticarum of Aldus Pius, (MDVII, Venice) whose comprehensive table of syllables stretches over five pages – consonants in front of vowel, vowels in front of consonants, two or three consonants in front of vowels, etc. Pius writes” Imitati autem sumus antiquos et graecos et latinos grammaticos. Discant igitur pueri quot syllabarum sint dictiones”.

The primary reader ascribed to Julius Pollux, who was tutor of Commodus, is worth looking at as an example of a Roman lesson book. Written in the late second Century, this text begins as follows: (I have interpolated Comenius' sixteenth Century take on this, to show the direct influence of the Classical model) “Bona Fortuna, Dii Propitii! Praeceptor, Ave! (c.f Comenius: Salve, Lector Amice!) Quoniam volo et valde cupio loqui graece et latine, rogo te, magister, doce me. (c.f C: Quis docebit me hoc?) Ego faciam, si me adtendas. (C: Ego, cum Deo) Adtendo diligentur..... Pollux then lays out his method : “Duo ergo sunt personae quae disputant, ego et tu. Tu es qui interrogas, ego respondeo. Ante omnia, lege clare, diserte” We see the same principle operating in Donatus, whose Ars Minor is constructed as a sort of grammatical dialogue. “Verbum quid est? Pars orationis cum tempore et persona etc” (Gramatici Latini, Keil). Donatus is providing a textbook, and also the suggested outline of a lesson plan for the praeceptor.

This method of teaching continues through the Carolingian period, into the Middle Ages, and into the Renaissance, when several hermeneumata texts were 'rediscovered', with so many other Classical texts. (Colloquial and Literary Latin, Dickey and Chahoud, Cambridge 2010).

The influence of these rediscovered texts on Erasmus, Vives and, particularly, Comenius, was immense. A large part of the renaissance educational enterprise was a deliberate attempt to revive the methods of the ancients.  Parsing grammars – more detailed than Donatus, and aimed at second language speakers, had started to appear even earlier, constructed entirely on the dialogic principle – composed in a self conscious effort to imitate  classroom practice in Ancient Rome. (exemplified by Priscian's famous “Partitiones duodecim versuum Aeneidos principalium”).

The Roman method of teaching was lauded by Simon Grynaeus, in a letter included in the 1536 Basil edition of Polluxes Onomasticum, which itself formed the model for Comenius' Janua, and Orbis Pictus. The influence of the Omonasticum and the ideas in Grynaeus' letter, on Comenius, are self evident. “non gravabitur praeceptor, praesentes ipsasque si potest, si non potest, pictas, sculptas, aut quomodocunque seu verbis seu gestibus expressas bene certa cum nomenclatura res, principio puerilibus oculis animisque quam diligentissime subjicere”

In the 1800's there was a move away from this Classical Roman method of teaching, to a newly invented method I would characterize as grammar-translation, with an emphasis on only using texts that were written by the Romans themselves. A Latin sentence not penned by a Roman of the Golden Age, was not Latin worthy of consideration, and no student should set their eyes on, or be corrupted by such a thing. Aesop was rejected, as were parsing grammars, dialogues, and the short narrative stories that had been the stock in trade of second language education in Latin  for over 2000 years.

Teaching Latin came to mean teaching grammar, and reading Latin came to mean translation. The methods that had been used since Roman times, in a more or less unbroken tradition, were largely abandoned. Aesop, who was a staple of the Roman and Renaissance primary classroom, was abandoned, depriving students of a rich source of easily digestible Latin. Aesop's place in the Latrin curriculum is now so unfamiliar, few teachers have any idea of what to do with an Aesop fable, or its pedagogical utility.

Dialogue went the same way. Students were often thrown straight into Caesar,  or some such author, as the primary text, before being rapidly exposed to Virgil, and quite advanced Classical literature. This represented a total break with the Classical tradition.

In the name of 'authenticity', a new and artificial method of Latin pedagogy arose, one that bore little relationship to its Roman predecessor. Perhaps it was felt that, as Latin was no longer required as a spoken idiom, the teaching method should change: As Comenius noted:  “discendae sunt non omnes totae ad perfectionem esse, sed ad necessitatem. Nec enim est opus Graeca et Hebraica tam expedite sonare, ut vernacula, quia homines desunt cum quibus loquamur." Comenius astutely noted , however, “Omnis lingua usu potius discatur quam praeceptis. Id est, audiendo, legendo, relegendo et transcribendo”.

It should not make a practical difference if a language needed to be spoken: the teaching method should not change. Thus we find many modern courses, with their mix of grammar, dialogue and narrative, are far closer to the Classical curriculum than anything we have seen published in over 200 years - however, they only approximate it - we find no modern course, for example, composed with extensive parsing exercises in Latin. Model teacher-student dialogues that provide a template for classroom interaction in Latin, are largely absent, or, in some textbooks, only hinted at. The vast majority of Latin study, is till focussed on grammar and translation.