Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Total Physical Response & Latin

If you are trying to incorporate more spoken Latin for fluency and understanding into your classroom, there's a wonderful discussion about TPR and Latin on the Latinteach email discussion list going on right now! Go to Latinteach.com to find out how to join the list!

If you have no idea what TPR teaching is, check out this Wikipedia entry.

There are lots of great TPR and TPRS ideas specifically for Latin teachers on Thomas McCarthy's site. Tom has even written a book entitled Nunc Loquamur, designed to get your students speaking Latin!
Harry Potter 24 Days and Counting!

In less than a month, The Harry Potter saga will finally be concluded. Latin teachers are gearing up for a new round of students coming to ask them for translations of incantations based on clever word play influenced by the classical languages!

Speaking of Latin teachers, have you seen the HogwartsProfessor.com website? If you're a Potter fan, be sure to have plenty of time because there's lots to read and think about here!

John Granger, the full-time Latin and English teacher who blogs on the HogwartsProfessor site is the author of Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader, Looking for God in Harry Potter, The Hidden Key to Harry Potter and a contributor to Who Killed Albus Dumbledore: What Really Happened in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince? Having taken a look at his blog, I'm putting these books on my reading list to tide me over until that seventh book comes out!

P.S. I know I've mentioned this site before, but here's a great article on incorporating Harry Potter into the Latin classroom. It's also written by 2 Latin teachers, Ginny Lindzey and Clint Hagen.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Rome Reborn 1.0

Rome Reborn 1.0 is truly an incredible website! Brought to you by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities and the University of Virginia, Rome Reborn includes a gallery of still images,. video and audio clips. View computer models of the eternal city. Wander the streets of an amazing ancient virtual Rome. Listen to audio clips about the history and future of the project.

You can read more about Rome Reborn on Yahoo News.

Monday, June 04, 2007

De Discendi Natura

Undoubtedly, you've noticed that your students learn in many different ways. This means that teachers need to teach in many different ways. Not only does it alleviate boredom, but it allows a teacher to present material more than once and review and practice with students.

Ruth L. Breindel has written a wonderful book entitled De Discendi Natura: Learning Styles in the Teaching of Latin. This is a wonderful book that presents 24 different learning styles and provides concrete examples for each. If you've been searching for ways to vary your teaching presentation style and review material in different ways, this is the book for you. Published by the American Classical League's Teacher's Materials Resource Center (TMRC), this would be a great book to pick up for the summer to prepare for next year.