Talking Back to Teacher: Orality and Prosody in the Secondary and University Classroom

Latin teachers recreating their instruction through a process called “comprehensible input” create a new equity in acquiring a classical language that has been missing in Latin classrooms for too long. Simultaneously, these teachers sustain interest and demonstrably higher retention rates in secondary Latin programs.

Any discussion of orality in the Greek and Latin classroom should begin and end with a discussion of learning goals. Orality and recitation is a (now neglected) strategy, not a goal in itself. In the intermediate-level Latin or Greek classroom, goals for most teachers probably include getting students to read, understand, translate, interpret, and appreciate ancient texts, poetry or prose. Orality can be a significant tool for working toward each of these goals, but how?

This paper draws on my personal experience as a teacher of Greek and Latin and an actor in classical plays to argue for introducing into the classroom the performance of ancient drama in the original language. In the paper’s first part, I shall present three reasons why performing plays in Greek and Latin can be an effective tool in the language classroom, to wit: it aids instruction, is entertaining and, quite literally, brings the ancient languages back to life.

Teaching students to speak Latin correctly and master its cadences is indispensable. Latin was meant to be heard, and the texts of antiquity were meant to be read aloud. Quintilian’s instructions for reading and mastering one’s letters provide evidence that scrolls were written with a view towards cultivating a pastime of reciting aloud (Johnson 2010). Today, that pastime is a crucial pedagogical tool. I offer in my paper my insights both as a teacher of Latin as well as a former Classics Major in the recent past.