What Can Active Latin Accomplish

It is a dark time in the teaching of Latin. Programs are closing, and student enrollment is continuing to decline. However, there is a NEW HOPE - ACTIVE LATIN….

In this paper I discuss the theory of "recasts", a type of corrective feedback closely studied in the last two decades by SLA researchers working from a cognitive-interactionist approach; I also present a model for the pedagogical application of form-focused recasts.

I have used the recent breakthroughs in Second Language acquisition research to inform my Latin teaching strategies with a variety of students, from public to private schools, children to adults, in classrooms and on archaeological sites, and groups of two dozen to one-on-one tutorials. Across these different settings, there are tools that I find indispensable and pedagogical questions that persist. In this paper, I will provide a glimpse into the regular practices of a teacher using Active Latin in every class.

Active Latin can seem like an all-or-nothing proposition. For most programs today, however, whether at the secondary or postsecondary level, converting all Latin classes to all Latin, all the time, is unrealistic. There’s no doubt that the communicative approach to language instruction serves some of our curricular goals very well; in particular, as SLA research indicates, it helps students learn to read with greater ease and understanding (summarized in e.g. Carlon 2013, Lightbown and Spada 2013; cf. ACL 2017, embodying these results).