International Summer Latin School

INTERNATIONAL SUMMER LATIN SCHOOL

8 Weeks of Intensive Courses

Learn to fluently read, write, and speak the language of Western Civilization.

ROME, June 27th - August 20th, 2011

During the 1980s a group of young classicists in Southern Italy began to gather around an old teacher and discuss the necessity of renovating the didactics of the classical languages. Young people from schools and universities from all over the world came to join them to spend years studying Latin and Greek - two languages that hardly anyone today manages to learn completely. From the discussions held during that time arose the need to analyze the course of history and the art of teaching Latin: How did the Humanists learn this language? How did Politian, Erasmus, Vives, and Comenius teach it? For this research, the students analyzed the most effective methods of modern language teaching: How was it possible that a parliamentary interpreter of Finno - Ugric languages could learn to perfectly read, write, and speak Hungarian in a relatively short period of time, but a high school student, after four or five years of study, could not comprehend even the simplest of Latin texts without the aid of lexica and grammars, and without having to translate it laboriously into his own language? And yet students heard four, even five hours of lessons a week, dedicating at least as much time to individual study.

The Academy Vivarium Novum has acquired a worldwide fame throughout the last decade for having studied, identified, and introduced methods of teaching Latin and Greek which may pose as a remedy to this situation. It has held international conventions concerning the topic from 1991 to the present day, with the participation of the greatest experts in the world. It has diffused in Italy and revitalized in Europe and the United States the contextual-inductive method for teaching classical languages. It has founded an international school to which students have poured in from every continent, where they acquire in a very short time a full and total command of the Latin language.

Now the Academy is placing its acquired competency from years of research and teaching at the service of those who wish to learn Latin with effective results and need to do so in a rather short period of time. The course utilizes specific teaching techniques, from induction according to the natural method to the Total Physical Response, and from "suggestopedia" to storytelling, as well as the Rassias Method. Through active use of the language - daily conversations and writing exercises - students may experience the method of teaching employed in the Humanistic schools during the Renaissance. This mixed approach, tested for years by the experts of the Academy, allows students to attain in only eight weeks the results that normally require almost three years of study.

The courses are open to students of every nationality. To be able to read Latin texts fluently is a skill that not only those who study classical literature need, but also those who study Medieval and Modern history, European literary history, law, philosophy, the history of science, theology, and liturgy.

mais informações e programa aqui.