Rebecca Boyd (George Washington University)
Latin educators in the United States have agonized over Latin reading instruction for over a century. William Gardner Hale published “The Art of Reading Latin: How to Teach it” in 1887, and in each decade that has followed Latin educators have explored how students can become successful readers of Latin. There has been debate as to whether students should be taught to read in a manner that mimics how the ancient Roman themselves read, from left to right (American Classical League, 1924; Gruber-Miller, 1998; Hansen, 2000; Harrison, 2010; Hoyos, 1997; Markus & Ross, 2004; McCaffrey, 2006), or whether students should use the “hunting method” to search for the verb, subject, and direct object. To better understand and facilitate the process of reading an ancient, inflected language, some contemporary classical language educators have turned to modern second language acquisition (SLA) theories, calling for a closer alignment between classical language pedagogy and modern second language (L2) pedagogy.
New understanding of the process of reading has prompted educators to differentiate among reading, comprehending, and translating, and to question the efficacy of the traditional grammar-translation method. Proponents of comprehensible input (CI) claim that students can become fluent readers of Latin by hearing and reading extended passages of Latin that are at or just above their comprehension level (Patrick, 2015). Promoters of spoken or active Latin assert that speaking Latin results in improved reading comprehension because students learn vocabulary with greater ease, and better internalize the syntactic patterns of Latin (Distler, 1969; Miraglia & Brown, 1997; Ørberg, 1991; 1997; Minkova & Tunberg, 2012; Patrick, 2015; Wills, 1998).
While classical language educators have been receptive to SLA theories, there has been less interest in understanding the experimental research that is the root of those theories. Classics could follow the lead of the modern languages as a research-based field, rather than one based on anecdotal evidence or tradition. There have historically been very few quantitative or qualitative studies conducted to investigate questions about Latin reading instruction or students’ Latin reading strategies (Boyd 2016; 2018; Thomson, 1961). In one current study however, Boyd (2022) is looking for patterns among students’ scores on the reading comprehension section of the National Latin Exam and the students’ textbook or the type of reading instruction to investigate which Latin students from which kinds of Latin programs are excelling at reading (Boyd, 2022). Through experimental research studies of this kind, researchers could investigate the outcomes of different Latin reading programs.
Until Latin programs are objectively evaluated in this manner, contemporary teachers will continue to search for the method that will enable students to read Latin proficiently. Underlying this search is the belief that if Latin educators could find the perfect method that enabled Latin students to fluently read classical authors, then these successful Latin students would be more likely to continue their study of Latin. In this way, the search for the perfect reading method is simultaneously the search for the key to the longevity of the field of classics.