The value of classical language education is subject to a fierce dispute, waged continuously and internationally. While some dismiss Classics as useless or elitist, others herald its extraordinary formative value and the many benefits that await pupils. This article aims to give a novel overview of the public debate regarding classical language education, which is defined as follows: the controversy about the instruction of Latin and/or Ancient Greek at the secondary educational level, as it emerges from Western traditional media in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The reader is provided with historical insight into this debate that many classicists find themselves in the middle of, as well as with a logical and coherent framework of the various arguments pro and contra. The arguments are embedded in the history of classical language education, classified into categories, analysed and discussed at length. The classification of arguments hinges on the two main lines of criticism towards the study of classical languages, which are inspired by egalitarianism and utilitarianism respectively. As a backdrop to the analysis, we rely on the sociolinguistic theory of language ideology. The general conclusions of this paper are that the value of classical language education is indeed a highly ideologically charged matter, and that the surrounding public debate has known a remarkably high level of continuity.

This paper aims to guide the training of all Latin instructors and learners who want to optimise the process of acquiring the language by applying the results of research carried out in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), specifically here those related to the acquisition of vocabulary. Consequently, some theoretical considerations on the psycholinguistic operations that govern vocabulary learning are first offered, in order to build a better understanding of language acquisition and to make instructors and learners more knowledgeable about the vocabulary learning process, from the noticing of an unknown word and its integration into the subject's competence to the expansion and development of knowledge about the acquired words. The theoretical aspects of vocabulary learning will be illustrated at all times with practical examples taken from methods and books for learning Latin, as well as, in the fourth section, with a wide catalogue of practical advice – must-do items for the class – that can be easily implemented by Latin instructors.

Unseen translation forms a central part of assessment and teaching both in the Latin GCSE and A Level. Developing skills for the unseen translation presents several challenges for the classroom teacher; unseens can be introduced using a scaffolded approach, yet pupils must learn to develop independence for the examination. Unseens can often take an entire lesson, or more to translate, precluding the opportunity for meaningful, immediate feedback. Furthermore, classes of mixed- ability students often suffer from staggered completion rates and unequal attention being divided among students. Within the curriculum, unseen classes can additionally suffer from feeling severed from the specification as passages contain unfamiliar material, the content is discrete from the set texts, and lack of an overarching framework for approaching unseens can make them feel irrelevant to pupils. Therefore, striking a balance between productive support for in-class unseen translation practice and nurturing pupil confidence requires a clear strategy. This article investigates the effect of two methods of formative assessment used in preparation for an unseen translation lesson with a year 12 class. Reflecting on the results of the investigation, this article discusses the opportunities different tasks may afford the Latin teacher for developing a vocabulary curriculum that supports long-term retention of vocabulary, increases the efficiency of unseen classes, and allows the unseen passage to be received as part of a wider framework of learning.

In the United Kingdom, especially since its re-introduction into GCSE exams by the coalition government of 2010, Latin composition attracts strong opinions. Indeed, Latin teaching methodologies altogether are highly debated. Traditional methods of grammar-translation are avoided by reading courses because of their supposed elitist nature, yet they are still used by many practitioners, and this is typically where prose composition is seen. This study investigates the use of composition in the teaching of Latin to a group of Year 7 students who usually follow a reading course, to see if writing Latin can be of any benefit to students who otherwise would not write any Latin. There is a great deal of literature on the topic, both in favour and against the pedagogical uses of composition. The aim of this study was to implement techniques from the literature into the students’ lessons, and to see what the outcomes were of this new skill.

This project investigated the effectiveness of a creative Latin composition exercise. Within this exercise, students built upon existing Latin textbook material, inserting their own character into an existing Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) story (CSCP, 1998). This form of exercise has links to more conventional prose composition exercises, but it also takes inspiration from exercises which use fanfiction to improve language skills (Bahoric and Swaggerty, 2015).

From my experience as a student of Latin, I have always perceived the transition from studying GCSE (sat at ages 14–16) to A Level Latin (sat at ages 17–18) as challenging. As a student, I used the inductive Cambridge Latin Course textbooks, which, as a reading comprehension course, fostered an intuitive sense of grammar. This was appropriate preparation for the GCSE exam. For the A Level exam however, which features greater quantities of difficult original literature and requires explicitly identifying grammatical forms, I had to undertake a lot of independent study, in addition to bridging work. Original Latin was a definite challenge for my peers and me: unusual vocabulary, creative generic form and lapses in grammatical convention were exciting but unfamiliar. With this in mind, I sought to investigate the experience of current Year 12 students.

The scene is Florence, Italy in 1493. The scholar and teacher Guarino of Favera is holding a series of classes for beginners in the Greek language. Few people know Greek since materials for learning it are few. We have an account of his method by Girolamo Amaseo, one of his pupils. Amaseo is one of 16 students whose ages range from youths to a 50-year old poet, and Guarino is teaching them some Iliad, Odyssey and Aristophanes each day.

In this article, we focus on the development of Rome: The Game – a large, lower-division online course crossed-listed in the History of Art and Architecture Department and Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara – that features a choose-your-own-adventure-style interactive narrative. We explore the design principles underpinning the development of this type of gamified course, the mechanics of the course itself, student experiences, and learning outcomes. Citing relevant research in several fields – such as game studies, educational psychology, and communication studies – we argue that creating an online course in the style of an interactive, narrative-driven digital game presents a model for engaging and effective active learning in an online environment – one that goes beyond conventional virtual learning to offer an innovative, active, and deeply immersive model for online teaching.

This study looks at the effective use of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey to teach Greek Religion at A Level. A focus of this study is to identify good teaching practice in using this tool to improve source recall as well as pupils’ ability to use these sources to support evaluation. A recent blog post on Quinquennium highlighted the potential for this game to be used as a teaching tool (Hinde, 2019), while its educational potential has also been promoted by the developers releasing a Discovery Tour version as a ‘game mode for educational purposes’ which acts as a ‘living museum’ (Ubisoft, 2021). While the development of educational tools for this franchise is fairly recent, the use of video games in education is established, with games like Oregon Trail being used as early as the 1980s (Buday et al., 2012, 259). Moreover, the fundamental ideas behind the use of video games, such as the player engaging in some form of virtual dialogue with the creator, is one which can be traced back to Vygotsky's ideas of learning as a socio-cultural phenomenon (1978). For example, by reacting to stimuli in the game, the player is engaging in a dialogue with the historian or game developer who created the initial stimulus, after which the game responds in turn, thereby engaging with the player's actions. Furthermore, the idea of reward or punishment for certain actions within an educational game is also drawing on behaviourist theories of education, whereby a pupil is conditioned via in-game tokens for recall of knowledge. Indeed, this is one of the ways in which game developers encourage game addiction (Vu, 2017, 1).

Playing is connected at a deep level to how we learn, participate in and create culture, as it is dynamic, complex and even unpredictable just as learning is (Reinhardt, 2019). Even Plato in his Theaetetus recognises the importance of such a component in experiencing culture and knowledge. Could playing (or gaming) therefore be a useful didactical approach in promoting the study of ancient Greek around the world? From 10th May 2023 at 1 pm. until 1st June 2023 at 1 pm., an internet survey was conducted online by the researcher Irene Di Gioia through the use of Google Forms questionnaires. This questionnaire was distributed via different social networks and communication tools. The survey aimed to understand if people around the world are interested in the idea of learning ancient Greek via a video game and if so, which video gaming activities learners prefer. The goal of the survey was therefore to understand if a ludic pedagogical approach using Digital Game-Based Learning could theoretically represent an interest experience for learners or potential learners, and furthermore to investigate their feelings, prejudices, and motivations regarding the study of ancient Greek. From the analysed data the researcher will therefore develop a video game to teach ancient Greek language and culture, which comprises the focus of her ongoing PhD dissertation at Georg-August University of Göttingen (Germany) and Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna (Italy).

Over 2023, many universities and policy organisations in the higher education (HE) sector are working to create guiding principles and guidelines for the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in HE Teaching and Learning (T&L). Despite these guidelines, students remain unsure if and how they should use AI. This article discusses the AI information sessions held over the Autumn 2023 term in the Department of Classics at the University of Reading, which aimed to provide students with the knowledge and tools to make informed judgements about using AI in their studies. These sessions discussed the benefits and drawbacks of generative AI, highlighting training data, content policy, environmental impact, and examples of potential uses. Staff and student participants were surveyed before and after these information sessions to gather their opinions surrounding AI use. Although at least 60% of participants had previously used generative AI, 80% of participants were apprehensive of or against using generative AI tools for learning purposes following the AI information sessions. By providing staff and students with the ethical considerations surrounding generative AI, they can make an informed judgement about using AI in their work without misplaced faith or excessive fear.

Research in the academic field of Latin and dyslexia is sparse, often outdated, and largely consists of teachers' informal observations, thus lacking empirical evidence. This mixed-methods study aims to address a gap in the literature, exploring the experiences of secondary students with dyslexia learning Latin, French, or Spanish while examining the relationships between dyslexia and examination results in those languages. After purposive sampling, semi-structured interviews with seven dyslexic students, aged 16 to 29, were conducted and 349 GCSE and IB grades, of which 51 were of dyslexic students, were collected from two secondary schools. Reflexive thematic analysis of the interviews revealed seven themes: accessibility, benefits, challenges and barriers, class size, methods and strategies, motivation, and strengths. The results of three chi-square tests showed no significant association for Latin or Spanish, but a significant association between dyslexia and examination results in French. Whereas positive learning experiences for students with dyslexia hinged on the appropriate teaching method and the perceived support rather than the language per se, higher exam achievements were also dependent on the level of orthographic transparency but not on the degree of orality of the language learnt. Future research in the field should explore the experiences and achievements of students at different educational stages and with different learning difficulties doing Latin.

The Classical Association, working with the charity Classics for All, is conscious of the vulnerability of Classics in the secondary education system and wants to understand the reasons behind this. Concern about the decline of classical subjects at GCSE and A Level has been mounting, indicated largely by exam entry data suggesting that entries for classical subjects are low and in the case of the ancient languages in decline.1 The Council of University Classics Departments Bulletin annually publishes statistics for student entries for national examinations at GCSE and A level in classical subjects. But this does not capture the full picture, nor does it represent the other constituent parts of the UK, which have their own examination systems. Therefore, in late 2021 the Classical Association and Classics for All designed a new Classical Studies Survey (the ‘Survey’), to fill in more detailed information about what is going on in schools' classics departments more widely through the UK, across Key Stages 3–5, and to provide practising teachers with an opportunity to make recommendations for future developments in courses for classical subjects. The Survey asked teachers to comment on the current situation for Latin, Ancient Greek, Classical Civilisation and Ancient History, the factors affecting these trends, and what support they considered they would need for Classics to survive in their institutions. This Survey collated data rigorously and enables the Classical Association on behalf of the classics teaching community to make compelling arguments in relation to education policies and examination reform.

It is generally accepted by scholars that the songs of Homer were first written in ~ 700 BCE; the text seems to spring fully formed into a still illiterate world, demonstrating in a sophisticated vocabulary the first example of the use of a new alphabet. The language used is a never-spoken construct; its construction represents the first use of an alphabet enabling words to be written. This paper aims to open a discussion on the means by which spelling emerged, either democratically or as the work of one man.

Not many of us ever get to see an actual papyrus roll, codex, or manuscript of a Greek or Latin literary text, though increasingly we are able to see digital copies of them online. The differences of format between any of the above and the texts we are accustomed to seeing are striking. This article is concerned with the effect that the format of a text had on the reception, written or aural, of word order as a literary device in the ancient world. We pay great attention to word order, but our reception of it is based on the format of the modern text, not on the format of the text as it was experienced in the ancient world.

This report describes a new project, ‘Better Arguments’, which seeks to teach learners in Scottish secondary schools about what constitutes a good argument, how to identify a bad argument and how to build their own ‘better’ arguments. The unit of lessons uses extracts from Cicero's Pro Caelio as a means of modelling both good and bad arguments, with the aim of equipping learners with a framework by which they can analyse and evaluate not only Cicero's arguments but arguments generally. By way of background, the report explains the current provision of Classics teaching within Scotland and the challenges facing those who are working to reinstate Latin and Classical Studies, particularly at National Qualification level. In this context, the ‘Better Arguments’ project is one strategy to increase the Classics provision in state schools. The report explains the rationale behind the design and content of the unit and then goes on to highlight the benefits of teaching this unit, especially the educational, cultural and social gains to be made. It identifies some of the potential challenges to the implementation of these lessons and offers some solutions to them. Finally, it considers the ways in which this project might be viewed as a starting point, with suggestions as to how the skills developed here might be further built upon through the use of other classical texts in future units of work.