Stultus

This is a great post choral reading idea which I got from James Hosler, a fellow CI Latin teacher in Ohio. It is really simple but goes a long way!

Following a choral reading of a story:

1. Give the laser pointer to a dependable student (one who understands Latin word order well) and ask that student to point to the words of the story which you just read through together.
2. Now YOU the teacher will translate the sentence aloud into English, as the class listens and watches.
3. The difference is that you will deliberately make some mistakes (either vocabulary or form) when translating aloud
4. When students hear you make a mistake, they will yell Stultus or Stulta, depending on your gender (or maybe some kinder word).
5. You as the teacher will make the necessary correction and then move on.

Observations

1. Students really get into this. When I first tried this out, I was not sure how they would respond but gosh, they loved yelling "stultus" at me.
2. Because students had the opportunity to call me stupid in Latin, they really paid attention to the story and to my translation
3. This was a great way to do some pop-up grammar when I made a mistake
4. This was another way to get students to read through the story in a different way
5. This was a great way to use the words stultus/callidus in a context, because if I get a sentence correct, I say, "Ha, ego non sum stultus, sed callidus!" or when students correct me, I say, "Babae, vos estis callidissimi!"