Several excellent options exist for textbook‐driven Latin courses developed specifically for the Middle Years or Secondary level student. When delivered by a creative and invested instructor, these courses can be the jewel of a school’s language department:
One the oldest and most established Latin course series is the CLC. Navigating the editions and plethora of publisher resources and cost is the only difficult thing about choosing to use the CLC. In general each textbook, called a “Unit” by the series, maps to a grade‐level of secondary study; e.g. Grade 10 is Unit 1, Grade 11 is Unit 2, etc. Students would need to complete Unit 3 to be able to work unsupported in the vulgate.
Unit 1 is appropriate for Middle Years learners as well, however, and could easy be used with appropriate pacing in Grade 7. Since the CLC has Units up to 4, a program from grades 7–12 is possible entirely within the CLC rose garden.
To take advantage of updated research in the field, full colour illustrations, and more modern digital resources, not to mention better availability of print resoruces, new programs are recommended to implement the 5th edition.
A very popular course for the old school instructor! Hans H. Ørberg’s 2‑part introductory course offers maximal freedom to the instructor whose own Latin level is sufficient to design pace and sequencing for their students. Although the course follows a typical progression of concept introduction, the available resources from Hackett publishing are not as proscriptive as Cambridge and others and the paper exercise books function more like ‘problem sets’ in a math course.
By the end of Roma Aeterna, students can muddle through the vulgate with minor support.
A new offering that takes full advantage of distributed learning models, Visual Latin is a combination online and print resource package. With two level currently released, Visual Latin is best suited to hybrid learning environments and those where only two Grades of enrollment is expected. Visual Latin assumes an English language capability somewhat above Middle Years learners.
By the end of VL 2, stduents cannot yet work in the vulgate without support.
Do you have a favourite course to recommend? Please write to us!
If you took Latin in university as an elective, minor option, or part of an antiquities degree, you are surprisingly well‐qualified to teach secondary Latin. While the best case is a language specialist, even completion of first year Latin courses will have placed your capability above what the most popular secondary‐focused courses cover. If you are wondering if you could teach Latin, join our mailing list and start a conversation!
Depending on your context, it could be surprisingly easy to facilitate a teacher who wants to offer Latin courses. As long as the Ministry of Education and Childcare is not offering Latin in the regular curriculum, Board/Authority Authorized (BAA) courses are the only way to implement a program that receives Graduation Program recognition.
The full BAA development guide is available here.
The course grouping for Latin will be “LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH”, which means the course will have a “YLOE” TRAX/ GRAD code. In line with the manual, credit options should be 2 or 4 depending on instructional time/ depth.
Example BAA curriculum for Grade 10 and 11 courses is provided by Evan Sharp at Coast Mountain Academy, Squamish. Courses were developed in early 2020 and revised in 2021 around the scope and sequence of the Cambridge Latin Course. Editable versions are available upon request in the Mailing List.