How I design learning experiences for classical languages

Classical Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, and Akkadian —

Back when I was an undergrad, I loved studying classical languages. I was fascinated by how complex the grammars of these languages were, and how their vestiges still lived on in the words we use today.

As I create my mission-driven app for language preservation and revitalization, I look back to my experiences learning classical languages.

In this article, I'll revisit those experiences, and showcase how I've been incorporating them into my learning design process.

How are classical languages typically taught?

Classical languages like Latin, Hebrew, Greek, and Sumerian have long been taught using variations of the grammar-translation method. As its name implies, this method involves teaching grammatical rules and then having students apply those rules with translation exercises.

The methodology is simple and straightforward, and makes sense given the fact that there's no real spontaneous communication to prepare a learner for when the target language is no longer anyone's mother tongue.

The grammar-translation method also meshes well with how most students of classical languages wind up using their language knowledge: to read and translate texts.

As such, the primary learning goal for anyone teaching a classical language is typically to guide students towards a working level of reading proficiency.

This is my goal, as well.

Learning the writing system

The first nut to crack is always the writing system.

I've written elsewhere about the process of learning and teaching languages that make use of different writing systems. So here my goal is to simply contextualize this for the classical language experience, where achieving native-like pronunciation is not a goal simply because the language has no native speakers.

Instead, the goal is to develop pronunciation skills that are adequate for the greater goal of achieving functional literacy in the language.

To give a concrete example: I'm less concerned about whether a student chooses to pronounce the Greek letter 'φ' using a reconstructed 4th century BCE Attic pronunciation vs. a pronunciation that aligns more with Modern Greek. I'm far more concerned that the student can recognize that γρ?φει is the 3rd-person singular present indicative form of the verb γρ?φω.

But I digress.

When first learning a new writing system, I'm fond of using transliteration — a way of representing how words or symbols are to be pronounced using a writing system familiar to the learner. Transliterations are like training wheels, which can eventually be dropped once the learner has reached a point where they are no longer needed.

Activities for developing translation skills

Once the initial headwind of learning a new writing system has been addressed, learners can be guided through the core grammar-translation experience.

Here I'll showcase a few activities I'm building that fit snuggly into the grammar-translation paradigm.

1. The grammar explanation. This is a simple explanation of a grammatical rule accompanied by examples, ideally interactive ones.
2. The word-building activity. This activity is similar to one I showcased earlier in this article, but the variant shown here is really designed to help the learner recognize or recall verbal forms.
3. The multiple-choice word/phrase translation task. This is a familiar take on the multiple choice activity. The learner is presented with a word or phrase in first language, and presented with translation options. This task can go in both directions — from source language to target language, and from target to source.

As always, thank you kindly for reading this!