Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
I've said it before on here but the standard of English of many students I've seen with passes in English is terrible. I'd rather that was improved before teaching niche languages
Turning the clock back, teaching Latin in state schools
- Thread starter RileyOBlimey
- Start date
maomao
普費斯
I'm a trainee English teacher with a linguistics background and I honestly don't think I could get anything useful from that exercise. And I could probably work the Latin out in a couple of hours. It's a grammar problem. It took me four weeks of lessons to get a class of quite high ability 11 year olds to get the hang of the difference between subjects and objects and I was lucky to be allowed to teach it in the first place. They'd need to have a basic understanding of case (which English doesn't have) to even start on that and that would take a few lessons.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
My dad - himself a teacher (but of chemistry) - was asked by my brother's sister-in-law if he'd proofread her Master's dissertation, and was appalled by the very poor English in which it was written: this was someone who would already have submitted a dissertation at undergraduate level, and from what he reported, her use of language, grammar, and spelling were, by his standards, extremely poor.
I wasn't aware, when I was at school, that the standard of my written English was widely at variance with my peers, so it looks as if it's a deterioration that happened subsequently to me finishing my schooling (early 1980s).
And the standard of written English here on Urban is, generally speaking, pretty good from my point of view, so it does suggest that it might be a deterioration that has happened over time, rather than having always been there.
maomao
普費斯
I left school to be unemployed in 1992 and remember pulling up the grown adult at the job centre for writing 'could of' on his notes about me.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I marked an assignment by a student (mid-20s) in the last year, that was full of LOLs and textspeak...
Leafster
.
I went to state comprehensive school in the 1970s and we had the option of learning, French, German, Italian, Dutch and Latin. I think the last three were only taught because there was a demand to teach them and, together with the other comprehensive in the town, there were teachers who could teach them. I studied French, German and Latin at O Level.
I enjoyed learning Latin but it was more to do with our teacher than the actual Latin. He gave us a grounding in Roman Britain and language development across Europe which didn't seem to be covered elsewhere in our studies and I found interesting. I think he strayed from the set curriculum as he was so enthusiastic about it.
I don't really remember much Latin but I'm glad I studied it.
I enjoyed learning Latin but it was more to do with our teacher than the actual Latin. He gave us a grounding in Roman Britain and language development across Europe which didn't seem to be covered elsewhere in our studies and I found interesting. I think he strayed from the set curriculum as he was so enthusiastic about it.
I don't really remember much Latin but I'm glad I studied it.
A study of Anglo Saxon would work as well as Latin, if not better. This is how we started at university, it could easily have been begun a year or too earlier:
Fæder ure, ðu ðe eart on heofonum,
Father our, thou that art in the heavens,
Si ðin nama gehalgod.
be thy name hallowed.
Tobecume ðin rice,
may it come, thy kingdom,
Gewurde ðin willa on eorþan,
may it be realised, thy will on the earth,
swa swa on heofonum.
as also in the heavens.
Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg.
Our daily loaf give us today.
And forgyf us ure gyltas,
And forgive us our guilts
swa swa we forgyfaþ urum gyltendum.
as also we forgive those guilty towards us.
And ne gelæd ðu us on costnunge,
And do not thou lead us into temptation
ac alys us of yfele.
But free us from evil.
Soþlice.
Verily.
Fæder ure, ðu ðe eart on heofonum,
Father our, thou that art in the heavens,
Si ðin nama gehalgod.
be thy name hallowed.
Tobecume ðin rice,
may it come, thy kingdom,
Gewurde ðin willa on eorþan,
may it be realised, thy will on the earth,
swa swa on heofonum.
as also in the heavens.
Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg.
Our daily loaf give us today.
And forgyf us ure gyltas,
And forgive us our guilts
swa swa we forgyfaþ urum gyltendum.
as also we forgive those guilty towards us.
And ne gelæd ðu us on costnunge,
And do not thou lead us into temptation
ac alys us of yfele.
But free us from evil.
Soþlice.
Verily.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
The problem with learning Old English is that once you've done so, you discover that there's not much to read. There is more to be read in the complete works of Dickens than in the entire Old English corpus.
If you insist on making children conjugate and decline, why not teach then Russian or German?
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
On the strength of my (rubbish) Latin, I used to be able to help my brother with his German homework, and managed to learn a bit of German in the process - enough that I was able to converse, rudimentarily, with my German in-laws. I'd say that, if you were wanting to teach grammar via another language, German would be a pretty good one to go with.
