Latin Pedagogy: Resources

The following is a collection of sources relating to Latin pedagogy and its ethical application in the classroom. It was originally created by  Tashi Treadway , a doctoral student of Classics at Johns Hopkins University, who comprehensively gathered these materials in preparation for a doctoral exam. In the course of our research, it has proved to be an invaluable resource.

 History   Pedagogical Practices   Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Classics  

The direct link to each source is provided, either to a free, open access version or to where it is available for purchase.

 This article  examines how Latin education moved from fluency-based to grammar-based objectives which center Ciceronian Latin; it also offers questions as to what measures success in learning Latin.

 This source  examines the direct method of learning Latin. Because language education is mainly an oral experience, the direct method advocates for Latin oral immersion that feeds into the reading of more advanced Latin.

 This book  demonstrates the ways Greek-speaking persons learned Latin in the early Common Era by examining textual evidence. The texts are reminiscent of contemporary Latin textbooks, which offer interesting points of historical comparison. 

 This source  summarizes the history of Neo-Latin and the ways that Latin has been taught from the Renaissance to today. It is useful if one is interested in incorporating Neo-Latin writers’ work in the classroom.

 This undergraduate thesis  argues that pedagogical methods including Second Language Acquisition and Grammar Theory can improve students’ Latin acquisition, but educators should be mindful of students’ perspectives and learning styles, as well as the end objectives of learning Latin.

 This interview  with Eleanor Dickey, author of Learning Latin the Ancient Way: Latin Textbooks from the Ancient World (2016) puts her own publication in conversation with Reginald Foster’s Ossa Latinitatis Sola/The Mere Bones of Latin (2016).

 This book  discusses the reading method and offers insight into this technique in comparison with straight translation and grammar practices.

 This book  details ways to adapt teaching Latin into the 21st century with evolving technology and knowledge. Interested readers should consult the following sections:  “The Great Latin Debate: The Futility of Utility”, “The Linguistic Perspective”, “Trends in Language Education: Latin in the Mainstream”, “The Grammar-Translation Approach in College Latin”, “Toward Fluency and Accuracy: A Reading Approach to College Latin”, and “Graduate Latin Teacher Preparation Programs”. However, this book may mention some dated references.

 This article  outlines the roots of student motivation in language learning. The author attends to reasons why students in Latin courses may have less motivation than in their other classrooms, and subsequently offers practicable ideas to increase motivation via gameplay and making the classroom a safe space to make mistakes, among other suggestions.

 This study  explores the motivations of Latin students by interviewing those who took Latin to the advanced level. The authors identified models in theories of motivation that are commonly used in modern language acquisition and applied them to Latin acquisition. They also identified models that specifically apply to classical language learning. However, readers should note that this is not a comprehensive survey.

 This article  offers the results of a survey conducted by Philip Walsh and Donna Zuckerburg which aimed to discover what advice could be given to Classics instructors in higher education by pre-college educators.

 This article  questions the goals that educators set for teaching Latin. It argues that the original goal of reading Latin is not enough, since most students will not get to the point of reading authors due to waning interest or heavy requirements. Carpenter raises the goal of analytic skills which can be used in other fields, as Latin is like solving a puzzle.

 Res Difficiles  is both a conference series and journal which offers writing and lectures which aim to address inequities in the field of Classics, especially in relation to topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, class, and socio-economic status.

 This article  by a high school Latin teacher in a public school considers how potentially difficult topics which might come up in the reading of Latin, such as slavery and sexual violence, may be handled in the classroom.

 This article  delineates methodologies of multicultural education and systemic functional linguistics to analyze the language of slavery in popular Latin textbooks, including Latin for the New Millenium, Cambridge Latin Course, and Lingua Latina. Dugan offers suggestions for Latin educators about how to address the language of slavery in these textbooks, which often minimizes or erases the violence of slavery in the ancient world.

 This video  discusses decolonizing the classics through an examination of interpretations and translations of Black communities by Black scholars.

 This podcast  features interviews of different Latin teachers each week to discuss pedagogical strategies of the field.

 This article  examines the field of Classics broadly and considers the connections and histories of Classics and White Supremacy, arguing that “a whitewashed history of the ancient world lays the foundation for white supremacy across the curriculum.”

 Tashi Treadway  is a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins University. Currently, Tashi is writing her dissertation on human-animal relationships and identities in ancient veterinary medicine.