I began today’s lesson by telling the students that I would be introducing them to two new words, and that they would most probably be able to deduce their meanings due to their similarity to two English words. This led to a short discussion on the connections between some Latin and English words, including ‘arena’. The two words, which I wrote on the board, were singularis and pluralis. As anticipated, the students had no trouble in deducing their meanings.
2. The students copied singularis and pluralis into their books as the heading of two columns. I now asked them about our lesson greetings, salve and salvete, and which was singular and which was plural. We wrote these words under their correct headings. We then did the same with est and sunt. Now we added the phrases ‘una insula parva’ and ‘duae insulae parvae’ etc. (see below for the full list). As we went down the list, I encouraged them to deduce what they thought the next form might be. There were a mix of correct and incorrect responses.
3. Next the students were given a “worksheet” to complete, “imperium Romanum - a map study”. I asked the students to turn to page six of their textbook and examine the map carefully. They should use the map to write one word - from the supplied list - in each space. They should pay careful attention to whether they needed to use the singularis or pluralis. As they worked, there were a few questions about the meanings of Romanum and Graecum, which were easily explained. There are seventeen spaces on the sheet, and all but two students filled in 15 or more of the spaces correctly. At this point, I feel it will be a relatively simple thing to bring the other two up to speed. You can download the worksheet here.
4. Of course, some students finished earlier than others. One of my favourite things to do in this situation, is to invite the students to draw on the back of their worksheets. I told them that they could draw anything that they knew the word for in Latin - and that they should then label it. Here is one example of their work. After the students had finished, I collected the sheets for marking.
5. I put the illustrated version of Lingua Latin Per Se Illustrata : Capitulum Primum up on the screen, and explained that we would be reading from lines 22-37. The students were invited to either read along on the screen, or to follow along in their books. I made a point of reading everything slowly and clearly, and pointing out places on the maps. You can access the illustrated version here.
6. The students now read the same lines (22-37) on their own, writing down anything that they did not understand in a section at the back of their exercise books called “nondum intellego - I don’t yet understand ”. We then talked about what they had written down. There was very little.
7. Finally, I handed each student a copy of a class test, and said that they would be sitting this test on Friday (today was Tuesday). I went through each section of the test with them, and while I did not reveal any answers, I did tell them what was expected of them in each section. I told them that the words “littera” and “Latina” would be new to them, but that we would explore these tomorrow. I also mentioned that they wouldn’t always see a test before they sat it, but seeing this was the first one…. etc etc. You can download the full test (six pages) here.
Homework: I asked the students to write for five to ten minutes about what they had done or learnt so far in Latin class. I asked them to write in English, but to include individual Latin words and phrases if they wished to.