Hello everyone,
I am going to start this topic in both the Greek and Latin Forum. For my PhD project (see my Introduction on the Open Board) and my own Latin and Greek studies, I would be very interested in locating beginning Greek and Latin resources which teach the language by the Direct Method or, more generally, by a more communicative approach. Of course the method books written by Rouse and his collegues would be a huge inspiration and an excellant start. So, would you be able to give me a list of the most important ones, both for Latin and Greek?
Then, Beyond Rouse’s books, I see that there is a whole jungle of similar publications from that time, and I think I am getting a little bit lost… Maybe you could give me a hand in identifying the key works, with a special focus on a communicative and spoken approach.
Thank you very in advance for your contributions.
Francesco
Lingua Latīna per sē Illūstrāta series uses direct immersive approach, but you need an instructor who is fluent in Latin. Otherwise it will be an exercise in reading in Latin.
Accademia Vivarium Novum uses direct approach for both Latin and Ancient Greek. (I wish I were able to study there.) Maybe you can get more info from them. They have a website.
More recent than the old graded readers are the recently published Latin novellas. Most teachers using a communicative approach are using CI techniques like TPR, TPRS, PQA trying to make the best of whatever textbook they have to use, or try un-textbooking all together. You might also want to take a look at Forum and Polis.
Assimil has both an ancient Greek and a Latin method. They are very much based on a communicative approach. They both come with audio CDs for the dialogues and the exercises.