The Card Game

In my B.C.I (Before Comprehensible Input) days, there were lots of vocabulary activities which I loved playing with students, because they enjoyed them so much. Now that I am a CI teacher, I realize that many of them really do not lead to true language acquisition, but at the same time, does that mean I should throw them out? However, with a slight twist here or there, they can be adapted and be used easily for CI purposes. The Card Game is one of these activities.

I learned the Card Game years ago from my district's world language coordinator. It sounds like a very basic activity, and quite honestly, when I first explain it to students, it sounds the stupidest game ever. However, the Card Game was one of my students' favorite activities, because it was so competitive. NOTE - because my class is deskless, it is almost impossible for me to play this game, but if I were to have desks, I would definitely play it.

Materials

1. 5-6 different colored stacks of 3x5 index cards, with each stack being 20-25 cards. Depending on the number of students, you may need more or less.
2. A list of 20-25 vocabulary words which students already know. Again, depending on the number of students, you may need more or less. You can also use short phrases if you want. I would not use sentences because they are too long.

Pre-Activity

1. In each stack of colored index cards, write one vocabulary word VERY BIG in the target language per card. By the end, you will have 5-6 different colored stacks, with each stack having the same vocabulary words.

Activity

1. As the teacher, take one of the colored stacks of cards.
2. Divide the class into 4-5 different teams (depending on how many stacks of colored cards which you have left).
3. Give a different stack of colored index cards to each team.
4. Have each team distribute its cards to its team member. Each team member may not necessarily have the same amount of cards. Usually 5-6 words is a good amount of cards for each student.
5. On the board, write the names of the colors of the cards in the target language on the board. Each color represents a team.
6. Have students lay their cards out on their desks FACE UP so that they can read what is written on the cards. Each student should have between 4-6 cards. 
7. Now ask students if there are any words which they do not know and to ask you for the meaning. This is really important in order to establish meaning. 
8. Explain to the students, "I am going to call out the English definition of a word. If you have that word, then hold up the card as high as you can as quickly as you can. HOWEVER, there are 4-5 other teams who have that same word. The first correct card which I see gets a point. Also, just because I call a word once does not mean that I cannot call it again."
9. As the teacher, pick a card from your stack, and call out the English definition.
10. If students have that word, they are to hold up that card. Whatever team's correct card you see first will get a point.
11. As the teacher, put the card back in your stack, and pull out another card. Repeat the directions - the first team which gets 10 points wins.
12. At the end of the round (when a team gets 10 points), have teams switch cards within themselves, e.g., students with green cards will switch stacks between each other. Now students have a new set of vocabulary words. If students do not know the words, they are to ask the student who just had them.
13. Play another round.
14. After 2-3 rounds, tell students that they are to either:
1.  do a writing in the target language which involves the words which they have in their stack OR
2. draw a picture which uses the words in their stack 

Observations

1. This became my students' favorite game (when I had desks). I played it as an adult when I learned it, and WOW, it is a very competitive game.
2. This game is FAST, so this can frustrate the slower processors.
3. What I like about this game is when students switch stacks and I call out a definition, students, who just had the card but switched with someone, can get very frustrated, because they no longer have that word. This shows me that those students know that word now.
4. Although you can have students do a writing afterwards, I have found that drawing a picture was easier for students and did not require as much thought as preparing to write something. 
5. Because this can be a fast game and students will argue which card was held up first, I will also pick a student who will help me judge which team held up its card first.

Writing from Novice Learners

This semester, I have been doing a number of free writes in my Latin 1 classes. Though I still implement timed writes (which to me is usually attempting to re-tell a story in the target language which we have been going over in class), I have also been giving opportunities for students to write whatever they want in Latin based on input.

As writing is an output activity, it is important that we bathe students in input to such a degree that output is a natural overflow of that input. This is why I like implementing timed writes - after going over a story 6-7 different ways over 3-4 days, all of that input from that story has somewhere to go as output. Free writes, however, are different. To me, free writes are exactly that: students have the chance to create and to write freely whatever they want in the target language and are not spitting back a story. I usually give them a prompt of some kind and then let them write for X amount of time.

Having students do free writes has been a very interesting experience so far, and I am learning SO much about language acquisition theory in the process, especially for novice learners.

Observations

1. As not every student acquires language at the same rate, I have to accept that students "will be all over the spectrum" when it comes to output. There are students whose extent of writing output is being able to re-combine a seen list of vocabulary to create sentences, while others are able to create and to fashion sentences on their own. Guess what? Each of those examples is perfectly fine. The important thing to remember is that every individual student is exactly at the point where he/she is at; I cannot force students to progress at my pace. My sole job is to continue to immerse my students in understandable messages to aid them along their individual output continuum.
2. Output is going to be MESSY!! Messy to me, that is. To the student, however, most likely they are completely unaware of their errors, which is fine, because that is where they are at in their language acquisition. I love the following cartoon:
   
3. I am surprised at the number of students who are writing compound sentences on their own. In many ways, I do not think that they realize that this is actually "complex," because they are constantly hearing and reading compound sentences in the target language. In many ways, they cannot help but write compound sentences due to vast amount of input examples.

Some examples of free-write activities

1. 1-3-10 Free Write
2. 4-Word Picture Story
3. BINGO Free Write

I'll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours!

As part of a "I Will Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours" Twitter challenge from fellow CI/TPRS user Mike Coxon, here are some examples of student timed writes in Latin.

Much like Mike writes in his blog post, I use timed writes as a way for students to OUTPUT language after a great deal of INPUT. After going over a particular story multiple times over 4-5 days, I give students a set amount of time to retell the story to the best of their ability on paper. In most cases, the timed write turns into a free write, because if they complete the story before time is up, then they are to continue writing on their own in Latin what they think happens next.

The following are examples of some Latin 1 timed writes. This particular example is a 7 1/2 minute timed write, where the goal was 75-80 words for the time period - most far exceeded that goal. In this instance, for 4 days students had been going over a particular story (which I had written - the target structure was mihi placet + infinitive) in many different ways and modalities. Prior to the timed write, students were given pictures as a guide to retell the story aloud in Latin as a partner activity (another way for students to output after days of input). Immediately afterwards,I had them do a timed write, while the story was fresh in their minds.

Yes, the timed writes have errors in them, but that is expected - even ACTFL recognizes that there will be errors in communication at the novice and intermediate levels. Remember these are writings by Latin 1 students after just 1 1/2 semesters. Mastery of those concepts will come with time. The errors also show me what concepts which I need to review as their teacher. The other side of it too is that even though these are Latin 1 students who have only had 1 1/2 semesters of the language, look at what they are able to output after LOTS of input!! When I was took Latin under the grammar-translation approach, I never wrote anything in Latin!

182-word sample

136-word sample

111-word sample

1-3-10 Timed Free Write

Here is another timed free write activity which I found on Martina Bex's website, and I absolutely love it. It is another way to get students to write in the target language as a timed write, and it truly lowers their affective filter.

1. Give students a prompt about which they will write (either an actual written prompt or a picture for them to describe or to narrate the action). Doing 15-minutes of One-Word-Picture just prior to this can be very helpful, because since the class is the one who created the picture, the description of the picture should be fresh in their minds.
2. Give them one minute to begin writing - if I have given them a prompt, writing the actual prompt is part of the timed write.
3. After one minute, tell them to stop, to draw a line under what they have written and to count up the number of words which they have written. They are to put that number in a box off to the side of their one-minute timed write.
4. Now tell them that they have three minutes to write but that they are to re-copy what they wrote down for one-minute as part of the three-minute write.
5. After three minutes, tell them to stop, to draw a line under what they have written and to count up the number of words which they have written for three minutes. They are to put that number in a box off to the side of their three-minute write.
6. Now tell them that they have ten minutes to write but that they are to re-copy what they wrote down for three minutes as part of the ten-minute write. NOTE - my students are not quite up to doing a full free-write for ten minutes, so I give them seven minutes. The goal is to build up to a full ten minutes.
7. After ten minutes, tell them to stop and to count up the number of words which they have written for ten minutes. They are to put that number in a box off to the side of their ten-minute write.
8. I have them title the timed write "1-3-10" for future reference. I collect it and put it in their timed write portfolio for their end-of-the-semester self-evaluation.

Observations

• Instead of just jumping into an extended timed write, the one-minute write and then the three minute write served as a warmup for students. They had time to gather their thoughts and to transition to writing in Latin.
• Rewriting what they had already written gave them subconscious repetitions.
• The amount of words written in one-minute compared to three minutes was double for all students, and in some cases, was triple. The amount of words written in three minutes compared to seven minutes was double for all students, and in some cases, was triple and quadruple. 

BINGO Free Write

If there is ever a game in which students become incredibly competitive, it is BINGO. They can play this for HOURS. I have always enjoyed playing a game of Vocabulary BINGO with students, but at the same time, I felt that it was incredibly limited. We were dealing with isolated forms and vocabulary with nothing really in terms of a context, but at the same time, if I tried to impose too much in trying to create a context for the words during the game, then it stopped being BINGO. The reason why BINGO is fun is its simplicity.

I found the following BINGO activity on Martina Bex’s website, and I absolutely love it. It combines the fun of playing BINGO with a timed free write. The Latin version is called VINCO. 

1. Create a 5x5 grid and over each column, put the letters V, I, N, C and O. I do not put a free space.
2. Write a list of 35 vocabulary words/forms with which students are very familiar due to their usage. I try to keep nouns in the nominative form, but I put verbs usually in the perfect tense (e.g., cantavit, adeptus est, affectus est, circumventus est). Prepositional phrases (e.g., in fuga), idiomatic expressions (e.g., re vera, sine dubio, nisi fallor), impersonal verbs (e.g., necesse est, difficile est), high frequency forms (e.g., voluit, poterat) and even specific forms (e.g., lacrimatura, bibitura) are good too.
3. Cut out strips of the 35 words and put them in a bag.
4. Give each student a VINCO grid and a list of the words. They are to pick 25 words from the list of 35 and to fill in the grid however they choose.
5. Play a normal game of BINGO by pulling out a vocabulary word and calling out the the English meaning. As I do not have beans for them to put on their square, student mark the spaces themselves. NOTE - you will not be calling out the letter of the column like you would in regular Bingo.
   
   VARIATION - create the 5x5 grid with specific words for each column. Students will have to pick 5 words from the V list to put in the V column, 5 words from the I list to put in the I column, etc. This way, then you call out the letter like you would in a regular BINGO game. For some reason, this is VERY important to students. In planning, you will now have to put the corresponding letter on the vocabulary strip so that you can call out both the letter and word.
   
   
6. When a student gets 5 in a row, then he/she yells out (and yes, I make them yell) "VINCO!" They read back to me the Latin words, and I give out a piece of candy. I usually keep playing a round until there are 4-5 winners. After that, we begin a new round. 
7. After playing 3-4 rounds of VINCO, now tell students to get out a sheet of paper and that they will be doing a timed free write
8. Using their VINCO paper, students are to pick 5 words in a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) and to write them at the top of their paper.
9. Explain to students that they are to now write a story based on the prompt that will incorporate all 5 words.
10. Show them the prompt, start the timer for however long you want them to write and then have them begin. 
11. When the time is done, much like a regular timed write, have students count their number of written words and put it in a box at the top of their paper.
12. Now in the free write itself, they are to put a box around their prescribed words which they had to incorporate in their story

Here is the prompt which I once used with my Latin 2's - it gave them a character, what she was doing, where she was and then a possible problem:

Rhonda erat in culina, cenam parans, cum subito magnum sonitum in cubiculo audivit. quid Rhonda egit?

Observations

1. Playing BINGO before the timed write made the timed write not seem like a major task.
2. Some students did not like having to incorporate the 5 words into their timed write, because they had to manipulate them into their story, and their words seemed random.
3. Most students liked having to incorporate the 5 words into their timed write, because it gave them more structure with which to work. They actually liked having to find a way to incorporate these random words into the story and to manipulate the writing for this purpose.
4. Some wished to have seen the prompt prior picking their 5 words. I will do that in the future.
5. If students do not incorporate all 5 words, tell them it is okay. It could have been that the 5 words were just too random to fit into a story based on the prompt or it could signal that they need more time

I only play VINCO three times a semester so this another way in which I can get students to do a timed write

Writing in Latin, part 3 - Student-Created Comprehensible Readers

This is part 3 in a continuing series on getting students to write in the target language.

So after students have done a timed write, what can you as the teacher do with their writings? I got this idea from Kristin Duncan's TPRSTeacher blog, which she in turn had gleaned from Judith Dubois's blog Ms. D's Funny Little Classroom.

The idea is to take some of the writings and simply to edit them for the class to read the next day, and by "edit," I mean "to correct any grammar errors in the the writing." You as the teacher type up the writings but do not change anything which has been written other than the forms for grammatical purposes or for comprehension. 

Some may say, "Students should not be writing if they are going to be making tons of errors." I suppose that one could argue that, but the purpose of this is to create some more COMPREHENSIBLE readings for students. Because these have been written by students, most likely they do not include any random vocabulary which have not been acquired yet, i.e. the writings are written by students for students at a student-level. And remember: my role in this is purely as editor. The writer Oscar Wilde supposedly, when he was sending off a manuscript to his publishers, penned a note to them, saying "I’ll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whichs, etc.”

The following is an example of a timed write which I had my Latin 3 students do. The text in bold is a story which I had written: first, I read it aloud to them and acted it out - any new words or forms (such as the future participle) were written on the board and whenever I came to that word, I pointed to it on the board to establish meaning; second, the class received a paper copy of the story and we read through it together, with a choral translation of it and me asking comprehension questions in Latin about the story; third, students did a 25-minute Read and Draw of the story; fourth, finally students did a 10-minute timed write of the story, using their Read/Draw pictures - when they finished, they were to continue writing what they thought happened next. I then edited their "what happened next?" part and as a class, the next day, we read through them together. What follows are five student-written, teacher-edited conclusions of the story.

Jenny erat in culina, cantans et coquens libum, quod erat dies natalis Susanis. Jenny erat positura saccharum in libo, cum subito, Cindy culinam ingressa est. Cindy donum et venenum in mensa posuit. subito Cindy displosit, et Jenny obstupefacta est. putans venenum esse saccharum, Jenny venenum in libo posuit. libum ad Susanem a Jenny portatum est. Susan gaudio affecta est et erat consumptura libum. tum quid accidit?

1) cum Susan libum gustavisset, lacrimavit. Jenny rogavit, “quid accidit?” Susan dixit, “libum est pulchrum!” Jenny gaudio affecta est et gustavit libum. subito, Jenny displosit. Susan obsupefacta est, et consumpsit libum.

 2) Cindy intravit culinam. cucurrit ad Susanem et rapuit libum. tum Cindy deiecit libum in terra. Susan erat irata quod voluit consumere libum. “libum habet venenum!” Cindy clamavit. “Jenny voluit necare te!” loctua haec verba, Cindy petivit Jennyem. Jenny cucurrit e culina. “ego sum non homo quem tu intellexisti me esse!”

3) Cerberus culinam ingressus est, et Cindy in culina apparuit. Cindy clamat, “minime, libum venenum habet!” Jenny et Susan obstupefacti sunt. “estne venenum in libo?” dixit Susan. “ita vero,” respondit Cindy. Jenny tristitia affecta est, quod Susan erat consumptura libum, et libum habet venenum. Cerberus Jennyo appropinquavit, et prope eam sedit. Jenny gaudio affecta est. Susan risit (et dixit), “ego sum laeta, quod ego non sum mortua. Cindy, tu es amica. Jenny, tu es amica.”

4) Susan libum consumpsit et erat exanimata. Jenny obstupefacta est, et erat lacrimatura. tum Cindy decidit a caelo, et servavit Susanem. Susan affecta est gratitiā, et dixit, “maximas gratias ago, quod tu es meus heros!” Cindy explicavit quid accidisset. Susan et Jenny in animo volverunt cur Cindy portavisset donum cum veneno ad diem natalem. Cindy narravit rem. Cindy voluit necare porcum scelestum, sed obstructa erat a scelesto arbore. Cindy per silvam ambulavit…

5) subito Susan a Jenny pulsata est. irata, Susan Jennyem rogavit, “cur tu me pulsavisti? ego numquam te pulso!” Jenny Susanae dixit, “O Susan, re vera, tu est optima amica.” sed Jenny Susanem iterum pulsavit, et Susan humi decidit, mortua. nunc Susan (awoke) et putans esse fabulam mirabilem, libum laeta consumpsit. sed quod libum erat malum libum, Susan iterum humi decidit, mortua. Cindy apparuit, cacchinans!

Observations
1) Because everyone in the class took part in the timed write, it is a common experience for the class. The class knows what happened prior to the student-written endings, so they are eager to see what others wrote.

2) Because these writings are student-written, they are incredibly comprehensible to read. I do not even do an English translation of it when we read through them - we read them together in Latin as Latin - I don't ask any comprehension questions but simply read the stories aloud in Latin. What I love most is hearing students laugh as they read along with me, because it shows me that they are truly interacting with the language in the language.

3) Students actually get mad at me when I do not pick their writings for the class to read. I explain to them, "I pick 5-6 writings at random. Yours will be picked eventually."

4) In my editor role, I am able to see what kinds of grammatical errors which students are making; this shows me what I need to review or where I need to slow down to help acquisition.

5) I am absolutely floored at what students come up with when it comes to creating their own endings - they are so creative!

Writing in Latin, part 2 - What are Some Ways to Do It?

This is part 2 of a continuing series on getting students to write in Latin.

When it comes to having students compose in Latin, the name of the game is INPUT, INPUT, INPUT. In order for student output to occur, they need LOTS and LOTS of understandable input. Output, in a sense, is a logical overflow and outpouring of all of that input which now needs an outlet.

When having students write in Latin, I have three very important rules - I will address the reasoning later in this posting:

1. When it comes to writing, the goal is to create as much language as possible, THERFORE:
2. Do not worry about grammar for right now. Do not let that impede you from what you want to write - just write.
3. Do not worry about spelling for right now. Try to write the word as best you can or to write the word phonetically. Again, do not let this impede you from what you want to write. 

Here are two different types of writing which I do with my classes:

Timed Writes
Directly following an input activity, such as TPRS, Ask a Story, One Word Picture, Read and Draw, Read and Discuss, micrologue, etc., I tell students to get out a sheet of paper and that they will have X minutes to rewrite that story in Latin as best as they can and if they finish with time remaining, they are to continue by writing in Latin what they think happens next in the story in their own words. The idea is that during this set amount of time, they are ALWAYS to be writing in Latin. I remind students, "If you cannot think of anything to write, someone/something can always enter - what does that person/thing look like? Someone/something can do something - what is it? Then what happens?" If students run out of ideas or cannot think of anything, then I tell them that they are to write a list of vocabulary words which they know and hopefully, that list will get their creativity "flowing" again. 5 minutes is a good amount of time for beginners. When they begin to say that they need more time, then slowly begin to increase that time over the semester to 7.5 minutes, and then to 10 minutes and then to 15 minutes. When time is done, students then count the number of words which they have written and are to put that number in a box under their writing. At the top of the paper, they are to write:

1. their name
2. the date of the writing
3. the title of the writing (such as "Stage 18 Timed Write")
4. the amount of time given

This information is important for their future evaluation. Students turn their writings into me, and I will read them over. I do not grade them, but I will file it into their writing portfolio folders.

Free Writes

This type of writing activity is very similar to a timed write, in that students will write for X minutes. The difference, however, is that instead of rewriting something which has already been "input" into them, students will now respond to a prompt or to a picture and have to write about that. This is a bit more difficult for students in that they are now composing right away, instead of relying on an "input product" first as they had in the timed write. I do not do free writes until students have completed LOTS of timed writes. Same rules and procedures apply here as with a timed write.

To me, a free write allows for more creativity, as the prompt gives more freedom in writing. I am always amazed that even though all students have the same prompt, every student comes up with a completely different story.

Some prompts which I have used:

1. Brant in Starbucks sedebat, bibens caffeam et legens librum. subito magnum sonitum audivit. 
2. Ashley nocte per silvam ambulabat, et subito, conspexit aliquid.
3. Joseph in cafetera sedebat, cantans carmen, et subito, barbara puella cafeteriam ingressa est. 

Observations

1. This is a great way for me to see what vocabulary/language structures students have acquired. I cannot tell you how often I see students write "stock phrases" which I use in my stories such as (person's name) erat iuvenis/puella pravi ingenii (do students know that they are using a genitive of description?!) or (person's name) gaudio/ira/laetitia/tristita affectus est. 
2. This is also a great way for me to see what language structures/grammar I need to review or to continue to use in order for students to gain acquisition. Even though I do not grade these writings, I do view it as a formative assessment for me to see where students need more help.
3. Even though students may gripe when I say that they will be doing a writing activity, they actually do enjoy being able to create something in the language. I cannot tell you how often after a writing is completed, I hear students telling each other and me what they wrote.
4. The original story for a timed write or the free write prompt needs to compelling in order for students to want to write in the first place. If the prompt is Italia est parva patria in Europa, quite honestly, that really is not of much interest for students.
5. As students become more accustomed to writing, the amount of words which they will be able to write in X minutes will increase. If it does not, then this could be a red flag that I as a teacher am not doing enough input for student acquisition of language or it could be that this particular students needs a little "push" from me 
6. As students become more accustomed to writing, SLOWLY their sentence structures will begin to become more complex. But let us remember that these students are still novice language learners - do not expect just because the unit is on ablative absolutes that students will be able to produce these structures 100% on their own. 

So what about grammar/accuracy? Shouldn't we be teaching students to be grammatically correct when writing? My answer: yes, I agree but just not in the way that many folks do. Yes, I want students to be grammatically correct in their writing/speaking but at the same time, these are novice language learners, meaning that I should expect a TON of errors. Remember that the goal of timed/free writing is to create as much language as possible in a set amount of time, just not necessarily accurate language.

So where does the grammar correction happen? Although I do not grade the writings per se, I do take a look at them purely to see where I as a teacher need to do more review. If I see that students are writing everything in the nominative case, it shows me that they are still struggling with using the accusative ending and have not truly acquired it, so I will try to pattern that structure through TPRS and other input activities.

But don't grammar errors make it difficult to read what students have written? In some ways it can. Sometimes, I actually have to read their writings aloud to understand what they have written, because I as the teacher am putting on my grammarian hat and am getting all caught up with their errors, BUT as a sympathetic reader (an ACTFL writing proficiency term for novice/intermediate writers), I am able to comprehend what they are trying to communicate, which is the goal.

My own personal experience: in the summer of 2010, I attended my first Rusticatio, a weeklong, spoken Latin-immersion "camp." Even though I had studied and taught Latin for half my life by that time (and was a grammar-lover), I had never communicated before in the language. And let me tell you, it was very difficult! I found myself making what seemed like incredibly basic errors, such as "ego est laetus," and "ego cena parat," but let me also say that being grammatically correct was the last thing on my mind! All I wanted was to get Latin to come out of my mouth; forget grammar!! For me, that was the victory. If I worried way too much over being grammatically correct, then I never would have said anything that summer. What I was trying to communicate was understandable to the sympathetic listener. When correction was needed for the purpose of comprehension, then speakers patterned the correct usage for me but never blatantly corrected me, i.e., no Krashen's external monitor. And as I attended more Rusticationes, I found myself becoming more comfortable with communicating in the language, and I began to correct myself or to become more aware of the grammar needed to communicate (Krashen's intermal monitor). This summer will be my 5th Rusticatio, and I know that I will continue to make mistakes but I am definitely more comfortable making them. I write all of this to say that through my experiences at Rusticatio, I suddenly realized what my own students must feel like in my class.

The next post will address what students will do with their writings as a summative assessment.

Writing in Latin, part 1

This will begin a series of postings on writing in the target language

In the past, I have always wanted my students to write in Latin, but I have never been really happy with the results. I never liked the books which had students "translate the following sentences into Latin" because the exercise seemed rather stilted, and the sentences provided were rather impractical (e.g, the queen asked for money, because a pirate is sailing to the island - all 1st conjugation and declension words).  What I wanted was for students to compose in Latin on their own, but I felt like students did not have much to say when they wrote, and when they did, it was full of grammar errors.

When I myself was an undergraduate at UCLA, I had to take a Latin composition class, and I remember that it was such an incredibly difficult course - quite honestly, I do not think that UCLA even offers that class any longer. That class was the first time where I had ever been required to write ANYTHING in Latin outside of verb synopses and noun declensions (and this was after 4 years of high school Latin and 3 years of university-level Latin), and I certainly had never heard Latin before for the purpose of communication. I ended up getting a B in that class, and I was pretty proud of it, considering how tough it was. As I reflect back now, I realize that I really was not writing in Latin per se but rather decoding English into Latin, one word at a time.

These past few years though I have learned three very important points about students writing in the target language.

1. In order for students to produce "output," they needs LOTS of understandable "input" IN LATIN first. Input includes but is not limited to oral, listening, reading, drawing and singing, with as much student interaction as possible with the Latin IN LATIN so that the Latin becomes internalized. "Output" then becomes a natural response to "input," but it is almost like there needs to be at least 3-4 times as much input than output in order for output to occur.
2. Students actually do want to compose in the target language, but whatever they write needs to be both of great interest and compelling to them. This is why the stilted "translate-these-senteces-from-English-into-Latin" sentences usually do not work for students. An isolated sentence involving a queen asking for money because a pirate is sailing to the island is probably not of great interest to students.
3. Expect grammar errors! It is part of the language acquisition process. Based on the ACTFL Writing Proficiency Guidelines, Novice-level students can write lists of vocabulary words and compose rudimentary sentences and memorized phrases; if students have never written in Latin before, even if they are at an AP-level, then this is where they are at. Intermediate-level students can write full sentences and demonstrate basic control over language structures in their writing (note - in the modern languages, this is considered roughly the 4th year of actual usage of the language). I think that we teachers make the mistake of expecting students to write perfectly in Latin right away, even if they know all of their endings, and we push them to start writing complex structures too soon, but the ACTFL reality is, the average student cannot. Moreover, they will make a TON of grammar/spelling mistakes, which is exactly what they should be doing.

So what are some ways you can get your students to write in Latin if they have never done it before (and quite honestly, you have never done it before)?

1. Don't rush into composition right away. For Latin 1, it may simply be to write a list of all vocabulary words which they know in 5 minutes and then to count them. Granted this is an isolated list, but it is a skill of a Novice-level writer. Maybe students can spit back sentences like "Caecilius est in tablino," "Metella est mater," as these may have become memorized phrases for them.
2. Give students an understandable story written in Latin to read, with simple comprehension questions which they will answer by writing their response in Latin, using the text as the source. Though they are not composing in Latin per se, the act of copying words/text in the target language is a Novice-level writer according to ACTFL Writing Proficiency standards. Plus, comprehension of the text is needed for students to know what to write down, so both comprehension and writing skills are addressed.
3. Do a short dictation exercise. I have written an earlier post about dictationes and their benefits.

My next posting will deal with various ways in which I have had students write and compose PARAGRAPHS in Latin. 

Semester Reflections

As this semester is coming to a close, I now have time to reflect on how things have gone for me with CI these past 4 months.

After attending SALVI's Pedagogy Rusticatio and two other CI workshops this summer, I was very eager to incorporate it into my classes. But there were a few slight problems: I was only going to be teaching Latin 2, Latin 3 and AP Latin this year (and for the record, I do not do CI with my AP class, since the AP syllabus is so grammar-translation driven), so no chance of starting on the ground floor with Latin 1 students in introducing CI to a group who did not know language learning any other way; also, I myself had not taught 3/4 of these students in my classes, and in fact, about 1/2 were coming from a pure grammar-translation approach and had never encountered Latin as a true communicative language. The big question on my mind was this: I am already going to be viewed as the "evil step-parent" since the majority of these students have not had me before as their teacher, but will CI push them even further away from me since it will be such a drastic change from what they are accustomed? How much resistance will I encounter?

I decided to do the following: simply love them where they were at, and introduce CI to them very SLOWLY. And indeed, it worked. They truly began to warm up to it. In the beginning, it was quite an adjustment for all of us, but since the basic tenet of CI is to deliver understandable and meaningful messages in the target language, it worked perfectly, because my goal was to make sure that EVERYONE understood what I was saying in Latin and if not, to make modifications on the spot. Over the semester, I gradually incorporated TPR, TPRS, circling with balls, PQA's, asking a story, read/discuss, read/draw, embedded readings, dictations, one word picture, timed writes, micrologues, etc., until these became part of the class culture. Most importantly, we got there together.

For their performance exam, I had students do an evaluation of their timed write portfolio and of their overall progress for the semester. These students had never written anything in Latin prior to August - here is what some students wrote about their experience this semester, particularly with timed writes (NOTE - names have been changed)

"When i started Latin 3, I could barely translate the passages in the book to English without looking up half (of) the words in the dictionary. These writings forced me to write  passages which helped me improve my grammar and build vocabulary."             

                                                          - Joanie Cunningham

"Before this year, we usually stuck to straight translation but read/draw, micrologues and actually speaking the language in class has helped become even more comfortable with the language, especially when I am reading it. Translation has also become easier because I now better understand how the very sentences are pieced together and the grammar of them."

                                                                    - Little Bo Peep

"At first, I was uncomfortable having to write instead of simply translating. As the semester went on, my writing has become more and more complex, and I feel like I am honestly walking away from this semester with a greater ability to write in Latin."

                                                                     - Jan Brady

A few months ago, my friend Evan Gardner (founder of "Where Are Your Keys?", a language acquisition system heavily based on CI) had asked those who had attended Pedagogy Rusticatio if we would go back to how we taught five years ago. Quite honestly, I would do it in a hearbeat, because that old way is familiar to me - I could "phone it in" five years ago. CI is hard though and can be quite unpredictable. But I also see that CI is what is best for students, and one of my purposes of this blog is to share how I have seen this work for them.