MA History / Course details

This course is designed for students with no previous knowledge of Latin. Those who have studied Latin up to and including GCSE (or equivalent), however, may take it as beginners; those who have AS Level (or equivalent) in Latin should audit this course and enrol in CAHE 70182 Intensive Latin 2  for credit. Those with A-level Latin should take CAHE70111 Advanced Latin 1. 

To introduce students to the basic elements of the Latin language.

• 2 x 1 hour lectures per week; 

• 2 x 1 hour seminars per week; 

• 1 dedicated consultation hour per week; 

• Blackboard: course material, handouts and other supporting materials.  

Lectures introduce new grammatical material which will then be further explained and reinforced in the highly interactive seminars. 

Formal written homework is set each week and individually marked. This is a crucial part of the teaching and learning process. 

Also on Blackboard is a self-training programme, which consists of a large bank of quizzes, graded by level, on vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. Students are expected to make extensive use of these materials, in order to help them to learn the large amount of new material that they will meet during the course. The programme gives immediate feedback, including scores, correct answers, and, in the case of more complex questions, explanations. 

By the end of this course students will have developed the following abilities:

• knowledge and understanding of the basic workings of a highly-inflected language, Classical Latin;
•  mastery of (roughly half of) the basic Latin forms and constructions (accidence and syntax), together with a vocabulary of several hundred words, and a developing ability to use them both actively and passively;
• the ability to read a simple Latin text, seen or unseen, with fluency and accuracy;
• basic familiarity with Latin epigraphy

By the end of this course students will have developed the following abilities:

•  subject-specific skills, including an incipient ability to read, understand, translate and write Latin;
• an insight into the nature of the differences between English and Classical Latin.

See specific skills listed below, plus

• an incipient ability to read simple Latin instructions

By the end of this course students will have:

• an increased awareness of the structures and resources of the English language;
• a developed ability to analyse and to describe linguistic forms and structures;
• an increased knowledge and understanding of Latin-derived English vocabulary.

• Weekly feedback on formative homework exercises;
• Written feedback on formative and summative assessment (see above); all feedback is designed to contribute formatively towards improvement in subsequent assignments.
• Automated feedback through online quizzes
• Additional one-to-one feedback (during the consultation hour or by making an appointment).

Perhaps the best preliminary reading would be any good introduction to English grammar, such as Bas Aarts, Oxford Modern English Grammar (2011). If you can find it (there are two copies in the library), you would benefit from Norma Goldman and Ladislas Szymanski, English Grammar for Students of Latin: the study guide for those learning Latin. Second edition, 2000. There are also older copies of the first edition.

• 22 x one-hour lectures
• 22 x one-hour seminars
• 3 hours summative assessment
• TOTAL scheduled contact time = 47 hours

In addition, there are 11 dedicated consultation hours, together with extensively asynchronous online interaction. Detailed suggestions for the management of independent study time are given in the course handbook.