Latin Verb Tenses: Applying Second Language 1 Acquisition Research and Analyses of Verb Uses in Context Rebecca Harrison
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Teaching Classical Languages TCLAn Online Journal of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South Articles by: Rebecca Harrison, Stephen Kershner, Theodora B. Kopestonsky, and Christopher Trinacty Volume 10, Issue 2 (Spring 2019) ISSN 2160-2220 Ancient Languages, Contemporary Pedagogy Teaching Classical Languages Volume 10, Issue 2 Front Matter ii Table of Contents Letter from the Editor: Ave atque Vale iv John Gruber-Miller Referees for Teaching Classical Languages, Volumes 6-10 v Learning (and Teaching) Latin Verb Tenses: Applying Second Language 1 Acquisition Research and Analyses of Verb Uses in Context Rebecca Harrison Special Section: Latin Pedagogy and Pop Music What can Taylor Swift do for your Latin Prose Composition students? Using 48 popular music to teach Latin poetry analysis skills. Stephen Kershner Never Out of Style: Teaching Latin Love Poetry with Pop Music 71 Theodora B. Kopestonsky Music, Meaning, and the Muses: Teaching Latin Intertextuality with Wild 101 Nothing’s “Paradise” Christopher Trinacty Cover illustration by Keely Lake. The finished cover illustration is released for use under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Editor John Gruber-Miller, Classical and Modern Languages, Cornell College 600 First St. SW, Mount Vernon, IA 52314 [email protected] Editorial Assistant Keely Lake, Hot Springs, SD [email protected] Teaching Classical Languages Volume 10, Issue 2 Front Matter iii TCL Editorial Board Peter Anderson, Grand Valley State University Rebecca Harrison, Truman State University Caroline Kelly, Mitchell Community College, North Carolina Amy Sommer Rosevear, Cherry Creek High School, Denver, Colorado Wilfred Major, Louisiana State University Bartolo Natoli, Randolph-Macon College Robert Patrick, Parkview High School, Gwinnett County, Georgia Cynthia White, University of Arizona Teaching Classical Languages Mission Statement Teaching Classical Languages (ISSN 2160-2220) is the only peer-re- viewed electronic journal dedicated to the teaching and learning of Latin and an- cient Greek. It addresses the interests of all Latin and Greek teachers, graduate students, coordinators, and administrators. Teaching Classical Languages wel- comes articles offering innovative practice and methods, advocating new theoreti- cal approaches, or reporting on empirical research in teaching and learning Latin and Greek. As an electronic journal, Teaching Classical Languages has a unique global outreach. It offers authors and readers a multimedia format that more fully illustrates the topics discussed, and provides hypermedia links to related information and websites. Articles not only contribute to successful Latin and Greek pedagogy, but draw on relevant literature in language education, applied linguistics, and sec- ond language acquisition for an ongoing dialogue with modern language educators. Teaching Classical Languages welcomes articles offering innovative practice and methods, advocating new theoretical approaches, or reporting on empirical research in teaching and learning Latin and Greek. ISSN 2160-2220. Guidelines for submission may be found at http://www.tcl.camws.org/guidelines.pdf. Teaching Classical Languages Volume 10, Issue 2 Front Matter iv Ave atque Vale As I prepare to hand over the editorship of Teaching Classical Languages to Yasuko Taoka of Wayne State College, I just want to take a moment to highlight some of the accomplishments of the past five years of Teaching Classical Languages. Special sections on “Spoken Latin” (6.1), “The Tirones Project: Mentoring New Teachers” (7.1), and “Using Pop Music in Latin Pedagogy” (10.2), along with a Special Issue, the “Revised Standards for Classical Language Learning” (9.1), have provided readers multiple perspectives on a timely topic. Articles have covered a wide array of topics, from Erasmus to Vicapaedia, from beginner Latin novellas to teaching the Old and New Testaments to students of Greek and Latin simultane- ously, from Movie Talks to learning (and teaching) Latin verb tenses. The quality of submissions, moreover, continues to increase as those submit- ting see more high quality examples of articles focused on the scholarship of teach- ing and learning Latin and Greek, and authors become more comfortable utilizing quantitative and qualitative measures to support their conclusions. As regular readers of TCL know, the journal is intended to appeal to K-12 teachers and post-secondary instructors who are looking for ways to improve their teaching of Greek and Latin based on active experimentation and rooted in solid research. Both groups have been well represented as authors in TCL. Likewise, the journal actively attempts to find referees from both groups to evaluate each article (see below). Over the past five years, 68% of submissions have been published, always through multiple revisions, 21% have been rejected, and 11% are in the Revise and Resubmit phase. Over that same time period, authors of published articles have been 50% women and 50% men. Women and men have submitted in equal proportions (50% each). Reviewers who served were 45% women and 55% men. As my second five year term comes to an end, I want to express my grati- tude to the many teachers, grad students, college faculty readers who find Teaching Classical Languages inspirational, stimulating, and provocative. I am deeply indebt- ed to the generosity of those who have been willing to referee articles. I especially would like to praise my hard-working and responsive Editorial Board members and Editorial Assistants, Meghan Yamanishi and Keely Lake. Finally, I wish my successor, Yasuko Taoka, Dean of Arts and Humanities at Wayne State College in Nebraska, my best wishes for continued success with the journal. Teaching Classical Languages Volume 10, Issue 2 Front Matter v REFEREES FOR TEACHING CLASSICAL LANGUAGES, VOLUMES 6-10 Teaching Classical Languages would like to express its appreciation to the follow- ing referees who volunteered their time and expertise to help assess submissions and improve the content of volumes 6-10. Jessica Anderson Wilfred Major Peter Anderson Thomas Marier Rachel Ash Sophie Mills Kevin Ballestrini Milena Minkova Ben Baulf Heather Mulhern Henry Bayerle Bret Mulligan Christopher Bungard Bartolo Natoli Robert Cape Amy Norgard Mark Clark Matt Panciera Nava Cohen Miriam Patrick Jared Copeland Robert Patrick Jill Crooker James Patterson Lorene Custer Charles Pazdernik James Dobreff Jonathan Peasley Eric Dugdale David Pellegrino Erik Ellis Sarah Penso Brenda Fields Stevens Lorina Quartarone Kristopher Fletcher Kathleen Quinn Christopher Francese Teresa Ramsby Joe Goodkin Diane Rayor Rebecca Harrison Steve Reece Elizabeth Hestand Daniel Ruprecht Derek Ho Leung Chan Thomas Sienkewicz Thomas J. Howell Justin Slocum Bailey Georgia Irby Andrea Stehle Mark Keith Karin Suzadail Caroline Kelly Daniel Taylor Amy Kirk Leonard Daniel Tess Kenneth Kitchell Ariana Traill John Kuhner Roger Travis Dawn LaFon Philip Venticinque Keely Lake Rex Wallace Joshua Langseth Cynthia White Marcia Lindgren Hans Wietzke Anne Mahoney Jessica Wise Stephen Maiullo John Young Teaching Classical Languages Volume 10, Issue 2 Harrison 1 Learning (and Teaching) Latin Verb Tenses: Applying Second Language Acquisition Research and Analyses of Verb Uses in Context1 Rebecca Harrison Truman State University ABSTRACT This article uses research from Second Language Acquisition and from analyses of tense and verb uses in Latin authors to shed light on how students acquire verb tenses, especially past tenses, and to show how to enhance student learning of Latin verb tenses. I argue that 1) only one tense and one translation/use of a tense should be taught at a time; 2) the simple past meaning of the perfect should be the first past tense taught, then the stative use of imperfect, followed by the past progressive use, the present perfect, and pluperfect; 3) it makes a difference what verbs are used in teaching a tense; there are different semantic categories of verbs, such as stative, based on their inherent meaning, and tenses are acquired best with the category of verb that best matches the tense aspect; the combination of category of verb and tense can also sometimes aid in distinguishing translations of tenses; and 4) tenses occur in typical semantic and syntactic contexts, and these contexts are important to enhance acquisition and to aid in distinguishing different tense uses/translations. Finally, I provide teaching suggestions, sample exercises, methods for adapting and supplementing textbooks, and a review of textbooks in relation to teaching verb tenses. KEY WORDS Verb tenses in Latin, perfect tense, imperfect tense, pluperfect tense, Caesar, Vergil, lexical aspect Many of today’s Latin textbooks present the imperfect as the first past tense, often at the same time as the future, and the perfect tense after the imperfect, some- times together with the pluperfect and future perfect. They also often teach all the translations/uses for a tense at once. Some textbooks use the same one verb as the 1 Thanks to my readers and colleagues, including Amy Norgard, Greg Richter, Tom Capuano, Masa- hiro Hara, James Hammerstrand and Tim Farley for sharing their expertise and/or for their comments and advice, and especially to John Gruber-Miller for his suggestions. Thanks also to Keely Lake for all her work converting formatting. Any remaining errors are mine. Harrison, Rebecca. “Learning (and Teaching) Latin Verb Tenses: Applying Second Language Acquisition Research and Analyses of Verb Uses in Context.”