Aeneas and the Quest for a New City: A Study of Beginning Latin Textbook Methodologies

The transition from using textbooks to reading unadapted classical texts has proved notoriously difficult for students of Latin. It is my belief that some of this difficulty is due to the failure of beginning Latin textbooks to adequately prepare the students of today for this transition. In order to help improve this situation, I propose a model for a new textbook designed specifically to aid high school students of today in the transition out of textbook Latin based on my study of existing beginning Latin textbooks and their methodologies. The four main methods used by beginning Latin textbooks each offer distinct benefits for their users but also contain their own set of flaws. To maximize these benefits and minimize these flaws, most current beginning Latin textbooks make use of multiple methods at the same time. I have closely examined eleven currently popular textbooks so as to see how these methods are put to use and to notice what flaws still remain. I conclude that a new combination of methods would prove a better teaching method for high school students and provide an easier transition into unadapted classical texts. I then offer as an example a model of what the first few chapters of this new and improved textbook would look like