Creating a Comprehensible Input Classroom Dr. Robert Patrick Parkview High School

Agenda Principles of CI Daily Engagement and Job Exerceamus! What a year looks like What a week looks like

What motivates me Healthy Latin programs Equity in the classroom

Comprehensible Input

Mission Statement Our aim is to make the acquisition of Latin possible for all kinds of learners. In order to do that: we affirm that Latin is a language like any other with its level of inflection. we affirm that anyone who wants to acquire ability in Latin can do so if offered an approach which employs principles of best practice in language acquisition.

Mission Statement... We acknowledge that most Latin teachers, like most language teachers are themselves "four percenters" who enjoy questions of linguistics, grammar, and philology. These are fascinating disciplines of their own. They are not language acquisition, and they interfere with acquisition whenever and wherever they are substituted for best practices. Latin teachers are NOT normal. For our programs to grow and thrive we must be good at teaching NORMAL kids.

?????????????????????????? Do I have to give up my love of grammar? My love of Latin literature? My passion for Roman history? My unending delight in philology? Latin teachers MUST know and be trained in these things. It’s not what we know. It’s how we use it.

How to make a cheesecake

Cheesecake Graham crackers Sugar Salt Butter Cream cheese Vanilla extract Eggs Sour cream Heavy cream berries

Rotary Principle 1 The directions you are given may not mean what you think they mean

Rotary Principle 2 You can stay on the rotary as long as you like until you are sure where you are going.

Principles of CI--so far

Principles of Best Practicies for Acquiring Latin I It is impossible to prepare students to read the great Latin literature in 3-4 years. It is possible to give them basic reading facility AND an enjoyable experience of reading Latin, which may encourage them to continue study, in school or on their own.

II Every student has a right to experience being in a second (or third or fourth) language

III Latin teachers are not normal and Latin is not different.

IV Students only acquire language, including Latin, when they receive understandable messages in the target language.

V One of the quickest ways to deliver an understandable message in Latin is to give an English equivalent for a new word or phrase and then continue delivering messages in Latin.

VI Language acquisition, including the assimilation and understanding of grammar, according to the latest brain research, happens unconsciously.. Forgetting that I am speaking Latin

VII Direct grammar instruction does not advance acquisition. It interferes. It raises stress levels. Rising stress = lowering acquisition Grammar instruction can be helpful in advanced stages of acquisition as students begin to NEED to edit their own language.

VIII Error correction tends to put students on the defensive (raise stress). It focuses on the form (grammar) of the Latin and not the message, thereby inhibiting acquisition. Understandable messages are lost in the “endings”.

IX Shelter vocabulary, not grammar. All our texts do just the opposite. Consider Tres Ursi. What to do with our texts, especially if they have good stories?

X "Four percenters", both students and teachers, will interfere with their own language acquisition by their desire to focus on grammar study, translation, and language control.

XI We have an obligation to stay focused: am I delivering understandable messages in Latin? “This is a game changer.” Keith Toda Delivering understandable messages will mean that WE are uncomfortable and that students are more at ease. Lower stress = raised acquisition

XII Reading Latin is not translating Latin or speed translating. Reading: looking at squiggles on a page and seeing a movie in your head. Reading proficiency: what you are able to do, not what you know about the language. Our methods have focused on knowing about and not allowed us to do much in Latin.

XIII True reading develops in stages. It depends on acquired language. It does not correspond to a grammar curriculum. Reading is taking in understandable messages. If the messages are not understandable, it’s not reading.

XIV i + 1 i + 1 = where the students are, with interesting material plus a slight edge. Reading Latin only advances acquisition when it is i + 1. No textbook currently in use in the US provides those kinds of readings Teachers are obligated to create and edit readings to fulfill this requirement.

XV Production, of any kind, does NOT advance acquisition. Think sex. Production happens when the individual is ready to produce and not a moment before. The individual will produce at the levels he/she is capable of and will advance at his/her own pace. The only thing that will increase the individual's ability to produce higher levels of Latin is to receive regular and constant understandable messages in Latin, i + 1.

XVI CI is not Immersion Immersion camps like Rusticationes, Bidua and Conventicula Helpful and delicious in their own way, but... They are filled entirely with 4 percenters Screened by prior knowledge of Latin grammar and not reduplicable in classroom with normal students (i.e. not 4 percenters) Immersion camps are stressful, and rising stress = lowering acquisition.

XVII CI does happen in all kinds of classrooms. In strict grammar-translation classrooms, moments of understandable messages in Latin happen, usually unintentionally. In immersion camps, understandable messages happen all the time, intentionally and unintentionally. How do we craft class sessions where for 90% of the time, we are delivering understandable messages in Latin?

GPS Rule -- use tools the way they can best be used in the location

Various Delivery Methods Under the Umbrella TPR Circling with balls TPRS--ask and tell PQA WAYK Micrologue Dictatio Embedded readings Read and Discuss One Word Pictures Word Chunk Game Readers' Theater Language Experience Quae creanda et facienda Teacher: delivers understandable messages in Latin.

Daily Engagement and Jobs Daily Engagement requires: Bright eyes, heads up, square shoulders Clear desk Responses to EVERYTHING Jobs (there can be millions of them): Dinumerator Scriptor Pictor Horologiarius/a

Exerceamus!

Q and A What is comprehensible input? What does it have to do with equity in the classroom? What does it have to do with healthy Latin programs? How many ways are there to deliver it?

Various Delivery Methods Under the Umbrella TPR Circling with balls TPRS--ask and tell PQA WAYK Micrologue Dictatio Embedded readings Read and Discuss One Word Pictures Word Chunk Game Readers' Theater Language Experience Quae creanda et facienda Teacher: delivers understandable messages in Latin.

A CI Week in Latin 1? Die Lunae: Dictatio Die Martis: 4 new words, circle, ask, tell, PQA, with jobs Die Mercurii: 4 new words, circle, ask, tell, PQA with jobs Die Iovis: 4 new words, circle, ask, tell, PQA, with jobs Die Veneris: Word Chunk Game