Session Summary
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
4pm to 5:55pm EST
Topics covered:
Session Summary:
Alex did an absolutely SUPERB job this afternoon! I appreciate how he took the reins of his own learning and directed what we covered in session today. We worked on the grammatical points of the present participle, using the present participle to replace a subordinate clause (with which Alex said he was having real trouble understanding—at one point he had a "A-ha!" moment, which makes any teacher's day), and semi-deponent verbs. There were opportunities during all of that for me to present Alex with mini-lessons in how to determine the conjugation to which a verb belongs, how to determine the declension to which a noun belongs, and I also presented some of the other constants in the Latin language, for example the Neuter Rule. Alex seemed eager to stretch his learning beyond what was needed simply for tomorrow's test; he kept asking me to explain things. He seemed particularly interested by what I meant by "grammatical justification" and by grammatically justifying one's answer. That allowed me to introduce Alex to the idea of the linguistic difference between syntax and morphology. Alex left me with the real impression he has a genuine thirst for knowledge. He was also okay with the fact I consider macrons and other punctuation as crutches that merely impede my students' true mastery of this beautiful and wonderful language. A fun tangent was a few minutes was my describing to Alex the history of the Romans and how they had stolen the Latin language from the native Latins and how their endemic paranoia led them to found one of the largest and longest-lasting empires of all time. We finished the session with the agreement Alex would contact me when he feels he needs help with work, that he felt setting up a regular, weekly time is unnecessary right now. He promised he would call on me again. I very much look forward to working with this wonderful young man again. Thanks so much, Alex, for your good, hard work this afternoon. Best of luck on tomorrow's test!
4pm to 5:55pm EST
Topics covered:
- The Present Participle
- Using the Present Participle to replace subordinate clauses
- Semi-Deponent Verbs
- Mini-Lessons
- How to determine the conjugation to which any given verb belongs
- How to determine the declension to which any given noun belongs
- How the Romans stole Latin
- The real reason Why the Roman Empire and the known world became one and the same
Session Summary:
Alex did an absolutely SUPERB job this afternoon! I appreciate how he took the reins of his own learning and directed what we covered in session today. We worked on the grammatical points of the present participle, using the present participle to replace a subordinate clause (with which Alex said he was having real trouble understanding—at one point he had a "A-ha!" moment, which makes any teacher's day), and semi-deponent verbs. There were opportunities during all of that for me to present Alex with mini-lessons in how to determine the conjugation to which a verb belongs, how to determine the declension to which a noun belongs, and I also presented some of the other constants in the Latin language, for example the Neuter Rule. Alex seemed eager to stretch his learning beyond what was needed simply for tomorrow's test; he kept asking me to explain things. He seemed particularly interested by what I meant by "grammatical justification" and by grammatically justifying one's answer. That allowed me to introduce Alex to the idea of the linguistic difference between syntax and morphology. Alex left me with the real impression he has a genuine thirst for knowledge. He was also okay with the fact I consider macrons and other punctuation as crutches that merely impede my students' true mastery of this beautiful and wonderful language. A fun tangent was a few minutes was my describing to Alex the history of the Romans and how they had stolen the Latin language from the native Latins and how their endemic paranoia led them to found one of the largest and longest-lasting empires of all time. We finished the session with the agreement Alex would contact me when he feels he needs help with work, that he felt setting up a regular, weekly time is unnecessary right now. He promised he would call on me again. I very much look forward to working with this wonderful young man again. Thanks so much, Alex, for your good, hard work this afternoon. Best of luck on tomorrow's test!