Precerpt from My 20th Language: L2 Latin - High School
High School
I did not see Latin again until I
reached high school. Well, actually, that is not quite true I recognized the
Latin influences on the French around me in the community. I recognized it again
when in junior high I taught myself some Spanish in order to communicate better
with a penpal in Mexico.
My freshman year in high school, I
tool Latin I. Most of the students in the class struggled with it, especially
since the teacher was a grammarian and the course taught in the grammar-translation
mode. But then, how does on teach Latin if not through the traditional approach
of translation texts. After all, there is not a population of Latin-speaking people today where students
can be sent for immersion. Italy? Well, the language has evolved quite some distance
from Latin though again one recognizes the Latin roots in the modern language.
After Latin I, I took Latin II. The
class was pretty small. Students were tired of the struggle, but a few of us
did not find it a struggle and with just a few us in the class and all of us liking
translation, the same teacher went from being the and guy to the good guy. We
all looked forward to class and petitioned for a Latin III course, but we were
too few. Not cost-effective, said the principal.
Now did my fourth grade Latin study
prepare me for high school Latin? You bet! I came in understanding the basic
structure of Latin—quite different from English where we do not decline nouns
and our conjugational system is far simpler. So, I was not shocked by this
highly detailed grammatic system; most of the other students were. And from
fourth grade to ninth grade, I had time to see parallels in English, French,
and Spanish. Over the years, Latin had become a friend though my father was
able to borrow the textbook only that one summer. By ninth grade, I had
developed a comfort level with Latin (without further study) as declensions and
conjugations settled into my subconscious, available for pulling out as a
remembered form rather than a new one when we reached it in Latin class. The
same was true for the lexicon. I remembered old words I had learned in fourth
grade, and so learning new words was easier for me than for the other students.
Being a synoptic learner, I could always find a parallel between new words and
ones that were already in my memory. Oh, yes, that fourth grade summer had a
marvelous and positive impact on all my foreign language learning going
forward.
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