"A good way to teach Latin" Topic

I used to work at a school where we hjad a genius Latin teacher. Her kids regularly scored very high in state tests, and would often be seen wandering the halls speaking in latin to one another. She did all sorts of things like plays and events to make the language fun.

So when I was looking at the kickstarter for a game called "Gangs of Rome" all I could think of was how much she would have enjoyed using it in her class. Let all the students run their own gang of villains in Ancient Rome! Allow them to insult each other only in Latin.

Of course I am sure this would be considered non-PC, but it would make learning fun.

I have to admit, in grad school I had to learn Latin (and classical Greek). I never was very good at it, but I did learn the Locative from watching Life of Brian.

I learned more English grammar from taking Latin in college than I ever did in my English grammar classes.

Learned Latin in grade school from being an alter boy, but 4 years a Latin in high school. Some of us were on the football team and converse in Latin in the locker-room.

I never took Latin but I studied several dead languages in college (in addition to living ones) and the best professors taught it like a living language. Admittedly we weren't expected to converse in it, but we were expected to translate from modern English into Old English and Old Norse, as well as vice-versa. OTOH my prof for Old High German and Middle High German made it so unpleasant that 30-odd years later I still recoil at the memory of hacking my way through Parzival.

Hey! No hacking!

Flashing back to high school days . . . Took Latin with a high-energy teacher. Can still recite the opening to Caesar's Gallic Wars and The Aeneid. Well . . . parts of them anyway.

Also benefitted from taking Etymology. Helped me to get to the root of the matter with regard to understanding word origins and meanings.

"Semper ubi sub ubi!"

Cheers,
Chris

Five years Latin at school. I too learnt my English grammar from those lessons.

Caesar wrote like that chap in Star Wars

"All Gaul in three parts divided is …"

"I learned more English grammar from taking Latin in college than I ever did in my English grammar classes."

This right here in spades.

I taught Latin in high school for one semester while I was an undergrad. We participated in conversation exercises every class. In college, I was exposed to more conversational Latin through Petronius and Pompeian inscriptions/graffiti. What a welcome break from Cicero's twisted sentences!

Are most schools/colleges teaching classical Latin as opposed to the Vulgate (i.e. Church Latin)?

I learned a lot of my English grammar by learning German.

Cheers,
John