It was during my first year of teaching Latin when I realized that not everyone learned the way I did, and I had to figure out a way to reach all my students. I should have known this, since my older son is dysgraphic and my younger son is dyslexic. Thus, I began my teaching career with the determination to have all my students succeed in Latin.
If reciting endings didn’t work, they could sing them. If saying the words out loud weren’t effective (and it certainly wasn’t for me when I was a student), they could write them, or at least move their fingers while reading the words. I offered colors, shapes, pictures of soldiers to explain tenses (and this in a Quaker school!), and very brief videos — whatever might work, I did it. Of course, some things worked with some students but not with others; I would say, “Try this, it might work” — and it often did.
Learning preferences aren’t intrinsically good or bad, although some can be annoying to one’s self — in my case, that I can’t remember what was said — or to the class, as in the case of Max, a former student of mine who had to constantly verbalize his learning. As teachers we need to accept them, try to cut down on the annoying parts (Max wound up sitting by himself and whispering), and help them understand that they can take control of their own learning. Over the course of my 30 years as a Latin teacher, I came to appreciate how critical it is to identify students’ unique needs and utilize them to pave the way to new skills and knowledge. The episodes below shows this notion in action.
Which Direction?
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“Okay, here’s the chart for the relative pronouns.” I pointed to the board. “Regular order for cases, singular for the top five, plural for the bottom five, and in order: male, female neuter. When learning them, do it like this:
qui, quae, quod, cuius, cuius, cuius, etc. Except for you, Tom; you can learn it by going
qui, cuius, cui, etc.”
Why did I tell Tom to do it in an alternate way? It’s because he learned things in a chart differently from everyone else. He went from top to bottom, not from left to right.
I did not discover this at the beginning of the year, since learning only one declension was easy for him, as we did it in a top-down manner. It was not until we got to adjectives, where the chart was written across for male/female/neuter, and down for the cases, that Tom had difficulty. He couldn’t make the transition to going across, which is the way I had been taught and therefore taught the class. Instead, from a straight-A student he suddenly failed the quiz — disastrously! I couldn’t figure it out; up to then everything had been so easy for him. I asked him to stay a minute after class.
“Tom, what was the problem with the quiz?”
Embarrassed, he looked down. “I tried to fill it in the old way, going from top to bottom, but it didn’t work.”
Indeed, it hadn’t; on the bottom is the way it was presented, and on the top, how Tom had written it:
| magnus |
| magna |
| magnum |
| magni |
| magnae
magni |
| magnus |
magna |
magnum |
| magni |
magnae |
magni |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tom had taken the top row and run it down the column; he continued to do that for the entire chart. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the material; when I asked him to point out which word would be the direct object, he was correct. However, he did not think in the direction of the chart.
“Okay,” I said. “You did nothing wrong, and it’s obvious that you understand the material. I am just asking it in a different way than you think. I won’t count this quiz. From now on, if the chart is given with the genders going across, and the cases going down, I want you to learn it in your way — going down the chart. Then, when it comes to filling in the chart on a quiz, you won’t have any problem.”
Tom’s relief was written on his face. Even more than my assurance that the quiz grade would go way, he appreciated that I knew he was bright, and that the way he learned was all right. Latin was the first place where Tom found that he learned in a different way, since in algebra he had always written the steps in a column, and the proofs in geometry were also written top to bottom. Over the four years that he was my student, he learned how to take the information given and organize it to suit himself. He took control of his own education.
Structure
“I don’t understand anything! The teacher thinks that we already know all about Greek, and I know nothing. What are these declensions? What’s a conjugation?”
Coral was studying to be a minister. Because she was in her late 40s and the only world language she had ever studied was Spanish — and that many years before — the requirement to learn Greek was very difficult for her. We know that as we get older, it becomes harder to learn a new language, and Coral was struggling. I met her halfway through her first semester, and it was evident that she had no grasp of the structure of Greek, or even how to memorize vocabulary. In addition, the book she was using was very confusing. The only good part was that Coral knew she was in trouble.
[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]As teachers we need to accept [learning styles] … and help students understand that they can take control of their own learning.[/perfectpullquote]
In order to give her something to “hold onto,” I changed the way she was studying. Coral was an intuitive learner, but without understanding the structure of Greek she was making flights into unknown realms in her translations. I began with the basics of grammar (something she had never studied systematically, even in English), and as we reviewed the first part of the semester, showed her how the language worked.
“You need to pay careful attention to the charts in the back of the book; they’re there for a reason. Don’t fight the order of the words, but give yourself over to the arrangement of the sentence. And finally, the endings on the words really do make a difference!”
The early work wasn’t very exciting, but it gave Coral confidence, which she badly needed. We met once a week and, after I got her up to date, I taught her the next lesson before her teacher did, having her break the sentence into pieces (analysis) and the building up from the parts to the whole (synthesis). Analysis was not something she was skilled at, but it was so necessary. On the other hand, synthesis was easier for her. Excited by these methods, she explained them to the rest of the class; I was actually teaching about 10 people!
All was well, and I didn’t hear from her for about two years. Then one day she turned up on my doorstep. She now had to learn Hebrew. “But Coral,” I tried to explain, “I really don’t know much Hebrew.”
Coral brushed that away. “You know how I think — that’s more important.”
In order to each her, I had to learn Hebrew myself. I had the sounds in my head from my youth, but Coral had no sounds to draw upon. I had some vocabulary and prayers, but Coral had none of this. I knew it would be a difficult journey for her.
We began with charts again, slowly building up to the entirety of the grammar. Unlike Greek, there were few declensions and no cases. However, the verb system was quite different, with only three tenses and different forms for male and female subjects. By using the same structure of learning — ordered, concrete, and with lots of examples to analyze — Coral passed the course. Again, she wound up teaching the other students.
Too Many Choices? Too Few Choices?
“There were too many choices on the test, and I couldn’t decide which one was best. I hate multiple choice!”
“I can’t do those fill-ins! I can recognize if the answer given is right or not, but I can’t give my own answer.”
Here were two of my advisees, with opposite problems. There are some who can recognize, but maybe not generate, and there are others who can generate but have difficulty choosing among various answers. One was easy to fix, and the other wasn’t.
“Pete, here’s what you do: don’t look at the answers which are given, but figure out your own answer. Then, choose the answer that’s closest to what you have. It might not match exactly; remember how on the National Latin Exam they translate
habebat as “he had,” not “he used to have.” Since the other answers were “he has” and “he will have,” you could easily decide which to use.”
Pete nodded in agreement; he remembered that he had puzzled over that question for quite a while. His style is similar to when people are going to buy a Persian rug; they are shown only three, since more would be too confusing.
“Joe, you have a more difficult problem, but don’t worry,” I assured him, as his face fell, “you can do it! We can ask your history teacher to use a ‘word bank’ as I do in Latin, but I’m not sure he will do that for you.” I started using the word bank on a vocabulary quiz, since I knew that some kids just couldn’t come up with the correct meaning, especially in a pressured situation.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Over the four years that he was my student, [Tom] learned how to take the information given and organize it to suit himself. He took control of his own education.[/perfectpullquote]
Joe couldn’t always see what was happening, even with all the words on the bottom, in both English and Latin. However, at least he didn’t have to pick the answer out of thin air, and could choose the appropriate answer. Pete, on the other hand, would just ignore the word bank. As for the history teacher, I was correct – he would not put the answers on the bottom of the page, even if he interspersed incorrect answers (which I never did).
“So, Joe, we need another way for you to study. The test won’t change, but you can change. Here is a way to do it:
“When you read a sentence in the book, invert it: ‘Columbus discovered America in 1492’ becomes ‘In ___ Columbus discovered America’ or ‘In 1492 Columbus discovered ______’ or ‘In 1492 _____ discovered America.’ When you do this, you are making yourself look at the information in a different way, and by asking yourself questions, you also learn the material. It will take longer, sorry about that, but it also turns you from a passive student to an active one.”
This method works not only for those who can’t generate the answer, but also for the passive student who reads the information but doesn’t engage with it, so he never really remembers what he read. Sometimes the teacher can change, but when the teacher won’t, it’s up to the student to find a way around his difficulty. It certainly worked for Joe.
