teaching Latin in Catholic Schools

[anp1215]

Originally Posted by Kindness

My American children are living here in Germany and are now fluently bilingual in English and German (except my 5 year who spends so much time at home listening to English speakers but will start German 1st grade after the summer). My eldest daughter is about to move from elementary school to German grammar/prep school called Gymnasium, and is the equivalent of middle school and high school (the ages of 10-18/19.) There are four local Gymnasium and all teach similar curriculum with a slightly different emphasis. The Classical Gymnasium has Latin as the compulsory first extra/foreign language you begin with rather than English which is usual in most of the schools. The Classical Gymnasium as well as offering Latin, English and French also offers Ancient Greek.

What is most striking to me is whatever the language offered the students get so many more hours of teaching in each language a week than I know of in schools in America and the UK. Five hours teaching in each second language year round and they have a minimum of two in addition to German. However most Gymnasium expect three extra languages otherwise if you can't hack it you have to move down the schools and out of the gymnasium and into a Real Schule which is more like a regular High School.

My daughter starts her gymnasium in August. So at age 11 in her first year she will have English as a foreign language, the next year they will add French (or Latin) and three years later they must choose Spanish or Latin (again). They can also pick up Latin once again in 11 grade. Latin is important here in Germany for many reasons, one of which is you can't get into medical school without it. These are not Catholic schools however, these are all free public schools. There are no Catholic schools within reasonable commuting distance for us. Religion or Ethics is also a compulsory subject here.

I am really impressed with the quality of language teaching and the emphasis on acquiring languages, most teenagers I know here become fluent in English by the end of High School, to the point where they have to write very challenging essays on classic British and American literature. Our current Bavarian Pope is a great example of German education, but then Bavarian or Southern German Gymnasiums are considered the best and most challenging in the nation.

Yes, unfortunately the U.S. is far behind many countries (especially European ones) in terms of foreign language learning in school. I wish the foreign language instruction our kids get in school would be completely overhauled. Your children are very blessed to be getting all of this instruction!

[robwar]

yes to the above posts. A once a week "language" lesson in reality does not teach anything.
But if you switched it to something like Latin, you will get a good start and basis for English as well as other languages later on. Obviously, in Germany they are devoting more time at the younger grades with a set curriculum than here and again they are seeing the importance.

[ProVobis]

Originally Posted by robwar

yes to the above posts. A once a week "language" lesson in reality does not teach anything.
But if you switched it to something like Latin, you will get a good start and basis for English as well as other languages later on. Obviously, in Germany they are devoting more time at the younger grades with a set curriculum than here and again they are seeing the importance.

That's why IMO it's so important to expose young children to some Latin in the liturgy. It needs to be repeated until they can pronounce it and eventually get the meaning. And it saves money in the long run.

My parents sent me to Polish school on Saturdays in my very young days. This in addition to having Polish spoken at home. The extra schooling helped me retain much of the understanding in Polish up till today, even though I have had little opportunity to use it the past 40 years or so.

But the strange thing about Polish is that, although there are very few Latin words in Polish, the Latin nuances and grammar are more easily translatable into Polish than English, for example. Probably because of the inflective nature of the language. IWO words don't have to be in a given order within a sentence and verbs are understood.