Learning Latin by TPRS during the class was a really fun experience. I have learned some Italian two years old and I feel Latin and Italian are closely connected. But the most interested thing I found out was the ways I learned these two languages were so different. I attended a study aboard program in Italy for almost three months. Most of time we were learning about immigrants education in English there. However, due to the basic life demand, we were asked to learn some basic Italian such as ordering food and asking the road. During the first week, we were asked to remember a bunch of words and sentences for life demand and practiced by creating dialogues in class again and again in the following weeks. I would say that it was a sort of helpful for living there. However, I truly did not like the way I learned and I barely remembered much right now. It was also possibly because I was learning German around that time and I was kind of refusing remembering and mixing up with other languages. Turns out that I felt I was not interested with Italian at all. But I would say the class on Wednesday was fun. I could not tell how much I could still remember two years later, but at least I enjoyed the class.
When I read the first chapter, I misunderstood the meaning of narrowing vocabulary and learning grammars in a small range of words. After the class, I felt that I had a much more clear thoughts about what the author talked about. One thing I am still concerned was that TPRS emphasized that teaching our kids from their questions. However, I am wondering what if our students are super shy and barely asked questions or not interested in learning Latin and did not want to ask questions.
Christina, your contrast of learning some Italian and the way we did the Latin is a very good one. Your Italian experience is an example of forced output--memorize words and create dialogue. Our Latin experiences was comprehensible input. THe latter is what works!
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