Classical Workbooks help students to master the texts set for
Recently I have added two Easy Reader workbooks for language learning. These use the comprehensible input theory of Professor Stephen Krashen. Krashen provides teachers with a "magic bullet” to teach Latin much faster than before – the idea that from the beginning the student should read large quantities of UNDERSTOOD Latin.
GCSE Latin - 2011
- Virgil, Aeneid II, 268-792 (Escape from blazing Troy) - £10
- Pro Cluentio; Death of Claudius (Poisonings) - £7 [without grammar notes]
For copyright reasons I am unable to do a workbook on the other prose text, the CLA Germanicus and Piso.
I will not be doing a workbook for the OCR Anthology verse selection. The principal piece - Ovid's last night before exile - is just 60 lines of misery.
AS Latin - 2011 (£12 ea.)
- Cicero, In Catilinam I (1-19)
- Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII (6-235)
A2 Latin - 2011 (£14 ea.)
- Livy XXIII, 2-9 (Revolt of Capua)
- Virgil, Aeneid I, selection
- Tacitus Annals XIV, 1-16
- Catullus selections
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GCSE Greek - 2011 (£10 ea.)
- Herodotus, Infancy of Cyrus
- Homer, Odyssey VI, 20-185
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Lysias, against Eratosthenes
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Homer, Iliad XVI, 631 - 861
A2 Greek - 2011 (£14 ea.)
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Thucydides, VII, 75-86
- Euripides, Hippolytus (no vocab list; but text, interlinear translation, notes from the UTP edition of Thompson and Hayes (price £12 - due October)
GCSE Latbuiwith(contains(
Over the past 30 years the comprehensible input theory of Professor Stephen Krashen has come to dominate thinking about how best to teach foreign languages.
With Krashen, the teacher’s job is pleasingly simple; it is to ensure that, when your students receive words in the new language, they understand what those words mean. This 1983 BBC Horizon video shows Krashen demonstrating comprehensible input to teach German. Note the “big moment” at 2.01. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K11o19YNvk
The comprehensible input method contradicts the traditional way of teaching Latin, where the student is expected to work out the meaning of the Latin for himself. However, after developing these workbooks with my own students over the past few months I can confirm that it really does work: confidence and vocabulary improve dramatically. However, the important thing is to start them early. I have a student taking the AS Latin Language paper today (25th May); if I could have got her started on these Easy Readers three years ago she would now be walking through this paper.
- Latin Easy Reader I : The Adventures of Hercules - £10
- Latin Easy Reader II: Jason and the Argonauts, Ulysses - £12
The Easy Readers contain 44 stories apiece from F.J. Ritchie’s Fabulae Faciles. They are based upon the comprehensible input hypothesis of Professor Stephen Krashen, which states that the most effective way to teach a language is to explain to the student at the outset what the words mean.
The meaning is provided by a literal interlinear translation, as pioneered by men such as John Taylor and James Hamilton in the 1820’s. As a result students can read the stories quickly in their own time without a teacher.
The books can be used at any stage from beginner to Year 12. Containing between them over 1,000 lines of Latin, they make ideal preparation for the new GCSE language papers (which will now make up 50% of the marks in the exam).
- Re-translation Book: Hercules - £12 (September)
The Re-translation workbook contains English translations of the Hercules stories. The student is required to re-translate these back into the original Latin. Translating from English into Latin is the best way to nail case and verb endings into a student’s head. It will also appeal to brighter students who like a challenge.
GCSE Greek
Pass GCSE Latin
Pass GCSE Greek