Salvete. I teach Latin in a High School in New Orleans. I stumbled across this Forum last week and have noticed that many of you are fans of Lingua Latina. I use Ecce Romani in my classes. I have also used Our Latin Heritage. I myself was taught out of Oxford. I have a copy of Lingua Latina and have some questions about its use in the classroom. Since some of you have Lingua Latina in the spleen, I figured you would not mind my asking.
The layout looks nice and would probably be pleasing to the little ones I teach (Latin I begins in 8th grade). I see that in the first 79 pages the author covers declensions 1-5, the case system, Greek nouns, and at least five uses of the ablative. Then, in pages 95-131, it teaches adjectives, adverbs, and comparison. Will my students, some of them 12 years old, get bogged down?
While I understand the division of the book (Part I: Nouns, Part IV: Verbs, etc.), my concern is that it slaps the student with too many specifics over too short a period. It also seems to make on a large scale the same mistake all books make by teaching similiar things in the same chapter. For example, I learned gerund, gerundive, and supine at the same time. Lingua Latina teaches comparison of adjectives at the same time it teaches adjectives from three declensions. This seems to be a recipe for confusion. Am I wrong?
Anyway, I was interested in hearing opinions. Ecce Romani is not perfect, but it is what I use. I am always looking for textbooks.
Thanks in advance,
Nathaniel
