Prima Latina/Latina Christiana vs Lingua Latina
Drew,
I just noticed over on the TWTM forum and your blog that you're doing Lingua Latina with your daughter. I had assumed, due to your apparent relationship with MP that you'd be using PL/LC.
I presume you've had a chance to compare both programs.
I'd be curious as to your thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Would you consider using PL/LC in conjunction with LL? Is that overkill, or a situation where the methodology is sufficiently different in each that it would be oxen pulling in different directions? Is it a question of teacher skill with the language making one approach superior to the other?
FWIW, what got me wondering on all of this was, reviewing the LL site and doing a little math: 2 years of Familia Romana and your daughter (at 4th grade) would have sufficient Latin to tackle De Bello Gallico. That left my jaw on the keyboard, so I thought I'd ask.
If you treat this in LCC or LCC2, just let me know and I can wait to read about it. :)
Thanks,
Chris
Thanks, again.
Drew,
Your very prompt and thorough reply is most appreciated.
While I have some Latin, my wife's Latin education was quite poor. We've been inclined to start with PL for that reason, once our oldest boy has a handle on Phonics. He's currently 4 and half-way through Saxon Phonics Level K. We haven't decided whether I'll handle Latin and my wife "the rest", or if she'll be doing all the homeschooling due to the constraints of my job.
We're eager to read LCC (we're waiting on version 2) before we commit to the Latin Centered approach, although from what I have read it's what I've been seeking for our boys.
With Lingua Latina, are you stressing a Classical pronunciation, or are you maintaining the Ecclesiastical pronunciation of the PL/LC curriculum?
Thanks,
Chris
I'm using classical
because I wanted to be able to make full use of the Lingua Latina audio materials. We still say our prayers in church Latin, of course! :) That said, I know of a number of schools and colleges that use Lingua Latina but with ecclesiastical pronunciation. I think Latin students should be made familiar with both conventions at least by the time they start reading literature. Vowel length makes a difference in the scansion of poetry, for example, and Late (i.e., church) Latin doesn't distinguish between long and short vowels as clearly as classical Latin does.
-Drew
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"I wonder how far I shall carry any opinion with me when I plead for active effort to revive the general use of Latin?" - Hilaire Belloc
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Thanks, again.
Teaching both pronunciations does make sense if it's to be the center of the curriculum.
My wife and I are eager to get our hands on LCC. In the meantime, I'm making my way through Climbing Parnassus (along with the other books I'm presently reading).
Thank you for all your hard work on this. And thank you for being so accessible.
Some background
My dd was a very early reader; she has been learning Latin in one form or another since she was four. She went through PL and LC I, but because she was so young the writing in LC II was too much for her. (This is just one of the challenges of dealing with an academically accelerated student, not a flaw in LC.) We used another program to review what she'd learned in LC I, just as a change of pace, but I also wanted her to be exposed to Oerberg's methodology. There is no way that my dd will go through Lingua Latina in 2 years! That's a stiff pace even for high school students. For a child her age, 4 or 5 years would be more like it, and I think it's very likely that we will use grammar-translation programs like LC II and Henle in there as well.
I do discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both methods in the new LCC. The deciding factor for most people will be that Lingua Latina requires an experienced teacher or at least a parent who is willing to work 10-15 chapters ahead in the book. That's doable for some people but not most. So I still recommend that parents with no previous Latin background stick with grammar-translation programs like LC and Henle. These are excellent courses, and I'm not just saying that because MP published my book. ;) I'm seeing more and more people use Lingua Latina as a reading supplement to Henle, and I think that can work well, too.
Hope that helps!
-Drew
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"I wonder how far I shall carry any opinion with me when I plead for active effort to revive the general use of Latin?" - Hilaire Belloc
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