JAMES CHOCOLA

 

The Leap of Faith: Increasing Facility with Oral Latin and Incorporating Oral Latin into the Curriculum

This workshop will be applicable to any level of Latin (from elementary school to university).  Participants will not only engage in several oral and conversational Latin activities themselves but will also evaluate texts in order to determine points at which they may incorporate oral exercises.  Discussion will also include oral/conversational Latin activities in the context of the Illinois language goals and the Standards for Classical Language Learning from ACL/APA.  The goal of this workshop is to assuage initial fear of speaking Latin – both personally and in the classroom – and to guide teachers in evaluating texts and developing materials to incorporate oral/conversational activities into their Latin curricula.

 

Participants will:

•   Discuss ways in which individuals can practice – even by themselves – to increase their facility in oral/conversational Latin (i.e. convert their passive knowledge of the Latin language to an active one);

•   Engage in oral/conversational exercises entirely in Latin to begin increasing their facility with oral/conversational Latin;

•   Learn to evaluate a textbook in order to determine where oral/conversational exercises/activities will assist students in reviewing/retaining Latin;

•   Design oral/conversational exercises/activities pertinent to their individual textbooks;

•   Discuss oral/conversational Latin in the context of both the Illinois state foreign language goals and the Standards for Classical Language Learning from ACL/APA.

 

Participants are encouraged to bring their own textbooks or author texts to use during the workshop.  Some sample passages will be provided.

 

Just last academic year James W. Chochola (re)started the Latin program at Lane Technical College Prep. High School on the northwest side of Chicago.  It wasn’t until an undergrad Lucretius class nearly drove him from the Latin language that he realized reading (as opposed to translating),  listening, speaking, and writing ought to be utilized in Latin to aide in the internalization of the language.  To which end he has done several recordings – in Latin – for Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.  He is also a two-time attendee of the conventiculum Latīnum at the University of Kentucky Lexington and has presented at several conferences on the use of oral Latin in the classroom.  His goal is a happy medium between a reading approach and an immersion approach to learning Latin as a language.