Latin Language Teaching and the Student Experience

Undergraduate students are arriving to study Latin at St Andrews with increasingly diverse linguistic backgrounds. Differences between the content and standard of Highers Latin, A-level Latin and other qualifications mean that there is great variation in students’ experience, knowledge and skills. Some students therefore struggle with the linguistic challenges of many of our modules.

The project aims to enhance the language learning experience of all Latin students, whatever their background, by re-evaluating their respective needs. By means of questionnaires and diagnostic tests, we will assess the linguistic strengths and weaknesses (real and perceived) of students from different educational backgrounds at entry to the first year; and we will continue to monitor their learning, self-perception and performance in their second and third years. The results of the analysis will enable us to review our teaching and assessment practices across all four years of our Latin and Classics degree programmes so that we can better support and integrate a wide variety of students. It will also aid our efforts to integrate ‘Beginners’ Latin students with their ‘Advanced’ counterparts from the second year onwards.

As well as supporting students at St Andrews, the project will have implications for the teaching of Latin (and Greek) in other Classics departments at Universities across the UK.

The project will run for three years, from September 2012.
Interim findings will be published each year, and a final project report will be published in August 2015.

Drs Emma Buckley and Alice König were awarded a grant by the University of St Andrews’ SELF (Strategic Enhancement of Learning Fund) Panel to conduct this research.
The project is being supported by CAPOD (Centre for Academic, Professional and Organisational Development) at the University of St Andrews.