Latin class

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This article only presents the situation in Germany . Help us to describe the situation in other countries.

The Latin class is in Germany mostly at high schools or more rarely in comprehensive schools granted. Latin can be the first, second (most common), third or, in exceptional cases, fourth foreign language . The aim of the lesson is primarily to acquire the ability to translate Latin texts into German , but not to speak Latin or to write Latin texts yourself.

The teaching of Latin claims its pedagogical legitimation as a universal basic subject for a study-oriented educational direction that leads to the university via the Abitur . Since the Latinum (the highest proof of Latin language skills) is required as access authorization for some degree programs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the ministries of culture and education support him.

Germany

Latin is offered as an elective subject in most German grammar schools from the 6th grade (type Latin II) (or from the 7th in the longer form ( G9 )). The second foreign language can usually not be broken off until the 10th grade. This is followed by the offer from the 8th (or 9th) grade (type Latin III). Some grammar schools - often with an old tradition - already begin in the 5th grade with "basic Latin" (type Latin I with 15,370 students in 2016). Latin lessons are sometimes given in parallel with English lessons (for example with the “ Biberacher Model ” in Baden-Württemberg ) so that the English previously acquired in primary school does not wither away. Such classes are politically controversial or prohibited in other countries ( Berlin , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ) because the choice of Latin is seen as a preliminary decision for grammar school in the orientation level (classes 5 and 6). In most cases, Latin must be taken by the end of lower secondary , 10th grade. In Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony and Saarland, the Latinum is acquired at the end of year 9 after the start of the 5th grade (at least grade 4 (“sufficient”)).

In the upper level or qualification level, Latin can continue to be studied if enough students choose it. It can be an examination subject for the written or oral Abitur. To this end, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) presented “Uniform examination requirements in the Abitur examination Latin” . Only a small number of students choose this demanding test with a longer translation and tasks on interpreting Latin texts. Some schools only offer Latin in the last three school years from the 11th grade (or 10th) (type Latin IV) in order to give the chance to take the Latinum via the supplementary examination (see below). Depending on the type I to IV, different textbooks are required in order to proceed in an age-appropriate manner and with an appropriate learning progression.

Latinum

In Germany, the competence to translate and understand Latin texts is proven by the Latinum. If it is achieved at school, it is notarized on the Abitur certificate. According to the agreement of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in the revised version of 2005, students must attend Latin classes in ascending order for at least four years or take a written and oral examination (legally correct designation: supplementary examination, i.e. an examination that supplements the Abitur). In some cases, the federal states require even longer participation times so that the students actually achieve the required level of competence. The Latinum must be submitted for some subjects in some humanities study locations , including history, theology and some foreign languages. The individual regulations vary greatly depending on the country and university . Those who did not acquire the Latinum at school may have to do it at the university, which can extend the duration of the course.

The attempt to use the Latinum as a uniform basis in Germany and to eliminate the difference between small and large Latinum has not yet been successful. There are currently three forms in Germany, depending on the country: the small Latinum, the Latinum (KMK-Latinum) and the large Latinum, the differences between which lie in the language skills achieved. For the Latinum a simple original text (e.g. a historical text by Caesar ) has to be translated, for the large Latinum an abstract, e.g. philosophical text by Cicero . The above-mentioned agreement of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (2005) and the other provisions for implementation in the federal states provide the legal basis for this.

All 16 countries know the Latinum, which is the only form certified in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hesse, Saxony (see above) and Thuringia.

In Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, there is not only the Latinum but also the large Latinum.

In Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia there is a second variant, the small Latinum.

In another four states (Bremen, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein) there are still all three variants.

However, some subjects are satisfied with the proof of functional knowledge of Latin below the level of the Latinum, which is proven by attending appropriate courses or by school reports.

The legal basis also applies to the Latinum examinations that are taken during the study period.

Teaching practice and content of the subject

Learning the Latin language, its grammar and basic and extended vocabulary usually takes at least two and a half years and tends to take longer. Today's textbooks offer a deep insight into ancient culture even in the language teaching phase. The teaching methodology has changed significantly over time. The translation exercises into the Latin language, which used to be a matter of course, are rarely carried out and are often prohibited as an educational policy requirement.

Afterwards Latin original texts can begin reading, first with a suitable start reading . Usual works in the reading phase are Caesar's De bello Gallico , Cicero's speeches or letters, Nepos , Pliny the Younger and various Roman poets such as Catullus , Martial or Ovid . Cicero's philosophical and rhetorical-theoretical works, Horace , Sallust , Seneca , Livius , Tacitus and Virgil are considered more difficult . In addition to the Roman classics, late antiquity (for example Augustine of Hippo ), Middle Latin or Neo-Latin texts can also be considered. In addition to the foreign language, a lot of knowledge from mythology , history , philosophy and literature from Roman and Greek antiquity and also from later epochs is acquired.

Current didactic challenges include changing over to competencies and educational standards , securing basic linguistic knowledge in a shorter time, consolidating translation methods , integrating students who do not have German as their mother tongue, the changed learning behavior in the age of new media and the proportion cultural content in addition to the language in the classroom.

A didactic institutionalization is on educational journals ( The classical language teaching , Friedrich Publisher Seelze), currently three didactic chairs ( in Berlin , Göttingen and Munich: Stefan Kipf , Peter Kuhlmann and Markus Janka ) and the bi-annual national conference, which the German Altphilologenverband (DAV) aligns.

History of Latin teaching in Germany

Latin lessons began in what is now the German-speaking area in the early Middle Ages, when Iro-Scottish monks evangelized the Germans and founded the first schools. In the Middle Ages and in the early modern period, Latin, which was also taught in monasteries, remained the language of the clergy and the educated who had to master the language actively and passively. In a phase comparable to the lower level, the basic terms of the language were taught and classical authors were read , while in the phase comparable to the upper level the focus was on translating German texts into Latin.

In the 19th century the humanistic grammar school with Latin and Greek became predominant. Anyone who wanted to go to university had to have learned both languages. It was not until 1900 that the Prussian School Conference declared that Realgymnasium and Oberrealschule had equal rights . Latin lessons were able to hold their own at many grammar schools until the time of the “ Weimar Republic ”. Through the National Socialist upbringing , the ancient languages ​​were initially strongly questioned. The cultural sovereignty of the individual countries was abolished and the school system centralized. There was uncertainty about the future of high school and ancient language teaching until 1938. Finally, the (humanistic) grammar school (with Latin and Greek) was approved as a “special form” of the high school (only for boys), but Latin became the main form of the high school (for boys) binding again, namely as a second foreign language from the 7th school year (after English as the first foreign language).

After 1945, the individual countries in the western zones regained their cultural sovereignty. In the eastern part, the later GDR, the school system continued to be run centrally. While ancient language teaching was revived in the West and the general educational character of these subjects was emphasized, the GDR severely restricted it.

Since the end of the 1960s, however, there has been a new challenge with the so-called “ curriculum revision” imported from the USA , which in Germany was marked as a revision of the curriculum (1967) by Saul B. Robinsohn's book Educational Reform . As a result, not only traditional Latin school reading, but Latin teaching as a whole, and history teaching, especially teaching in ancient and medieval history, was fundamentally called into question. Since then, it was no longer a matter of passing on the centuries-old "educational material", but rather the question of which qualifications (ie which knowledge, skills and abilities) a child who goes to school today must have in the future, to live as " responsible citizen ”. This set in motion a new discussion about subjects and learning and working methods. This was partially implemented in the reform of the gymnasiale Oberstufe from 1972. Now the high school students could determine their subjects in the upper level themselves with the possibility of deselecting the old languages.

Late didactics in Germany (e.g. Rainer Nickel , Friedrich Maier , Hans-Joachim Glücklich ) made great efforts to go back on the offensive in the 1970s. In the individual federal states, at least a third, but often almost half of all students in a year who attend grammar school and obtain university entrance qualification have Latin lessons at some point in their school career. After the reunification of Germany (1990), Latin classes were reintroduced to a greater extent in the new federal states. From around 2000 to 2010/11, in a trend reversal, the number of students in Latin even rose sharply, and since then they have been falling, particularly in the upper school.

Future of the subject

Latin is the third most frequently taught foreign language in Germany. This rank is now rather an exception among European countries, even if Latin classes are still offered in most European countries.

In the 2010s, the number of German students studying Latin rose to 807,800 (in the 2010/11 school year in general schools ; that was 9.2% of the good 8.8 million students; between 11.6% in Bavaria and 3, 4% in Thuringia). In 2014/15 the following values ​​were determined: 688,625 students (= 7.7% of the student body, max. 11.4% in Bavaria; min. 3.3% in Thuringia).

Latin teachers with a degree in Latin Philology are currently being sought in most federal states. The school will also be opened to so-called “ lateral entrants ” without a teaching degree. Currently, only 225–375 teachers leave the study seminars each year with the second state examination. The debates about Latin lessons have been shaped by similar positions for decades: the appreciation of a linguistic and cultural basis for higher education contrasts with skepticism as to whether this effort still meets modern demands on the school.

criticism

Latin lessons in school are repeatedly exposed to criticism. Adversaries have repeatedly made the following accusations against the ancient language subjects :

  1. They are tied to their profession, class or class;
  2. their content is out of date, out of date and therefore useless;
  3. they are too heavy, too abstract, too theoretical;
  4. they hindered (due to the high number of hours) or destroyed (due to the degree of difficulty) the school career of the students.

Learning Latin is often at the expense of a modern foreign language, usually French . The European Commission , which has an educational policy competence in the field of foreign languages, recognizes the fundamental importance of learning old languages. However, the requirement for school leavers to master two modern European languages ​​in addition to their mother tongue (as stated, for example, in the 1995 White Paper on Education and Training) creates a certain barrier against Latin teaching.

A recent debate criticizes the inadequate effects of a four-year Latin course for the average student, which would be exacerbated by the strong popularity of the subject in Germany. It was pointed out: "Never before have so many students in Germany learned Latin so poorly."

Controversial discussion about transfer effects of Latin for other subjects

Proponents of teaching Latin make the following arguments: First, Latin makes it easier to understand the roots of the Western world . Second, significant transfer effects are to be expected, since Latin promotes the development of intelligent learning and argumentation strategies. Third, learning effects for learning other foreign languages ​​are assumed; on the one hand because Latin promotes grammatical understanding, on the other hand because many European languages ​​have emerged from Latin. Dealing with Latin texts also leads to more creativity in one's own vocabulary and more diverse expression options in the mother tongue.

The assumption of broad learning effects was already doubted by Edward Lee Thorndike (1923). Thorndike found no differences in science and math learning performance between students with and without knowledge of Latin.

In a longitudinal study from 2000 by Ludwig Haag and Elsbeth Stern , no difference in the effects on intelligence and mathematics performance could be found between two years of Latin lessons and two years of English lessons. Two more years later, no significant differences in deductive and inductive comprehension or text comprehension could be measured between students with zero / two / four years of teaching in Latin (all students had four years of foreign language teaching). However, the students with four years of Latin lessons compared with students with two or zero years of Latin lessons achieved better results in finding grammatical errors in German texts and constructing longer sentences from shorter ones.

Another study by Haag and Stern (2003) measured the influence of teaching Latin on the ease of learning Spanish. For this purpose, the performance in translating a German text into Spanish after a beginner course in Spanish was compared between students who knew French at school and students who knew Latin (there were no significant differences between the groups for the control variables). The students with Latin as a second foreign language performed worse than the students with French as a second foreign language. The weaknesses of the latein group lay mainly in the use of prepositions and conjugation .

The Frankfurt Romance scholar Horst G. Klein advocated the thesis that French, as a so-called bridging language, is much more suitable than Latin for learning other Romance languages ​​because it has greater lexical and grammatical similarities to the other Romance languages. Sandra Hutterli et al. Consider it explicitly unsuitable as a bridge language. a. the Latin.

Also the assumption that knowledge of Latin / Greek in medical studies could be helpful for learning the terminology of physiology and anatomy shaped by these languages ​​was not confirmed in a US study.

Austria

In Austria, Latin is an entry requirement for many courses of study and is therefore a compulsory part of the curriculum in grammar school (but not in secondary school). Latin is taught in grammar school at the earliest from the 7th grade (3rd grade grammar school). If another foreign language can already be chosen in the 7th grade, Latin is compulsory from the 9th grade (5th grade high school). The latest developments show that a second, living foreign language is often chosen in the lower grades of grammar schools, which means that Latin is mandatory in the upper grades.

In the Realgymnasium another foreign language has to be chosen in the 9th grade (5th grade Gymnasium), whereby mostly Latin and French, but often also Spanish or Italian can be chosen. Latin is also often offered as an elective (with schoolwork) at commercial academies . Universities require at least 10 lessons of Latin from the 9th grade, whereby each of the above forms is recognized. Otherwise, knowledge of Latin must be made up, for example as a Latinum .

history

In the Latin schools of the Middle Ages, Latin was predominantly taught, with up to three hours a day a graduate could almost speak, at least read so fluently that (new) Latin texts were no hurdle. In the 19th century, Latin was still the type-defining subject of the grammar school and was taught from the 5th grade (1st class grammar school). But even in the Realgymnasium, which was introduced later, with six years of compulsory Latin from the 7th grade (3rd grade Realgymnasium), Latin was an essential learning goal. This also distinguished the grammar school from other forms of school such as the Realschule (which should not be confused with the Realgymnasium, but developed into the Realgymnasium), where commercial languages ​​such as French or later English were in the foreground. The first reform approaches came in 1927, when Latin was also introduced as an optional subject in secondary schools in order to enable transfer to the Realgymnasium. The already small offer was hardly accepted. With the reforms under the School Organization Act , lessons were compulsory until the 1960s from the 5th grade (1st grade Gymnasium) became compulsory only from the 7th grade (3rd grade Gymnasium), since English is taught from the 5th grade has been.

Rest of Europe

In the European context, teaching Latin as a foreign language is on the defensive. In many European countries, the social and political changes since the 1960s have led to a significant reduction in the teaching of Latin. Only Germany, Austria and perhaps France and Italy have so far been less affected . The subject is firmly anchored in Austria, as it is still an entry requirement for a large number of courses.

In France, students from the 7th grade can enroll for three years, as can the three years of the upper school ( lycée ). In Portugal, Latin can only be taken as an optional subject from grade 10 for two years (a third year is possible). The number of Latin students has meanwhile decreased dramatically. It looks similar in Spain. In Belgium / Flanders, less than 3% of pupils in general schools learn Latin. In Denmark, Latin is only taught in upper secondary school (maximum three years). In Sweden, the scope and duration of Latin lessons have been persistently reduced. The number of learners is very small, but statistically constant.

Since Latin skills are no longer compulsory for all subjects in Cambridge and Oxford in Great Britain , there has been a clear decline in Latin teaching and in Latin students in public schools. In private schools it looks very different.

In Greece, the subject does not play a role in favor of Classical Greek. It can only be chosen in the last two years of upper school (Lyceum). In the Czech Republic too, Latin is an optional subject that can only be taken for two years. In Poland , Latin was learned by around 35,000 students in 2009; There are plans to expand Latin lessons in the upper classes of the Lyceum .

In Italy, ancient Greek and Latin are compulsory subjects at the Liceo Classico (Humanistic Gymnasium). Classes are five per week for Latin and four per week for Ancient Greek. The Liceo Classico lasts 5 years. In 2014/15, 6% of Italian students were at the Liceo Classico (10–11% in 2003/04). But Latin is also a compulsory subject of the Liceo Scientifico (scientific high school, 15.4% of Italian students in 2014/15) - and the Liceo delle scienze umane (humanities high school, 7.4%). In total, 28.8% of Italian students learn Latin.

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Latin lessons  - explanations of meanings, origins of words, synonyms, translations

Footnotes

  1. ↑ See list of old-language grammar schools
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Schibel: Student decline and course course . In: Deutscher Altphilologenverband (Ed.): Forum Classicum . No. 2/2017 . Buchner, S. 95 .
  3. ↑ SOGYA 2012, on § 66 Annex 4. From grade 10 onwards, instead of Latin, lessons take place in another, mostly modern, foreign language.
  4. ↑ EPO Latin in the currently valid version from 2005
  5. ^ KMK agreement on the Latinum and the Graecum
  6. ↑ Bärbel Flaig: The regulations of the Latinum in the federal states . In: Forum Classicum . No. 4/2017 . Buchners, Bamberg 2017, p. 209-214 .
  7. ↑ Leaflet Thuringia 2009
  8. ^ VO Proof of knowledge of Latin ... Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
  9. ↑ Latina in Bavaria since 2008 (PDF; 28 kB)
  10. ↑ MSB: Latin. Retrieved January 3, 2018 .
  11. ↑ http://www.verwaltung.uni-halle.de/KANZLER/ZGST/GVBL/MBL-ORD/1995/ERGP_LAT.HTM
  12. ^ Friedrich Winterhager : Latin lessons for nuns in the Ebstorf monastery around 1490 under the influence of the Bursfeld reform movement. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015, pp. 79-85.
  13. ↑ Schools at a Glance 2016
  14. ↑ Federal Statistical Office: Schools at a glance. 2016, accessed January 29, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Evidence and invalidation can be found in Karl-Wilhelm Weeber : With Latin at the end? Tradition with perspectives, Göttingen 1998, passim ISBN 3525340036
  16. ↑ Text of the white paper on the Commission's website, here p. 59 , PDF, accessed on November 4, 2015
  17. ↑ Article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on April 2, 2006 by J. Schloemann: “For some of the old school, the language level is again almost too student-friendly, the grades too lax; The saying goes that never before have so many students learned Latin so badly. "
  18. ↑ a b Haag, L. & Stern, E. (2003). In search of the benefits of learning Latin. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 174-178. ( PDF , 35 kB)
  19. ^ Haag, L. & Stern, E. (2000): Non scholae sed vitae discimus. In search of global and specific transfer effects in Latin teaching . Journal of Educational Psychology, 14, 146–157. Full text (PDF, 991 kB)
  20. ↑ Does Latin make you smart? ( Memento of February 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 552 kB). In: Research & Teaching . 6/2009.
  21. ↑ Hutterli et al .: Do you parlez others lingue ?: Learning foreign languages ​​in school , Zurich 2008, p. 137.
  22. ↑ Pampush JD, AJ Petto. (2011): Familiarity with Latin and Greek anatomical terms and course performance in undergraduates. Anat Sci Educ. 2011 Jan-Feb; 4 (1): 9-15. doi : 10.1002 / ase.189 . PMID 21265031 .
  23. ↑ http://flv.at/Fm021/latein.htm
  24. ↑ Renata Czeladko: Łacina powraca do szkół. Rzeczpospolita, March 21, 2008.
  25. ↑ http://www.studenti.it/superiori/scuola/iscrizioni-online-2015-scuola-superiore-dati.php