Seminar announcement Teaching Ancient Greek and Latin as Foreign Languages: Past, Present & Future Perspectives

[Theodosios POLYCHRONIS]

Dear all,

Please find below the programme for the online seminar Teaching Ancient Greek and Latin as Foreign Languages: Past Present and Future Perspectives, organised by Aix-Marseille Université, with the collaboration of Université de Lille, Université Clermont Auvergne and the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

It will be held every Wednesday on ZOOM, at 5 PM Paris time (4 PM UK time ; 11 AM New York and Toronto time).

Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83496282717

More info: theodossios...@univ-paris1.fr

Even though this topic may not be directly linked to Modern Greek Studies, it is one that might be of interest to people who study teaching Greek as an L2, a topic that has generated an impressive body of literature — something which is not the case for Ancient Greek. Teaching the ancient form of the language, however, could become much easier if techniques used in the modern Greek classroom were adopted by classicists.  

Please feel free to share with anyone who may be interested.

Best wishes,

 

Theodosios POLYCHRONIS

 

Teaching Ancient Greek and Latin as Foreign Languages: 

Past, Present and Future Perspectives

 

As attitudes towards language instruction shift in the field of Classics and as Latin and Ancient Greek are increasingly thought of and taught as foreign languages rather than languages fixed on paper and forever silent, interest in Second Language Acquisition research and how it can be applied to classical language instruction has increased. However, even though there have been several general publications on the topic, there exists no solid theoretical nor practical framework, no cohesive international research project on the topic and no comprehensive examination of results. As a consequence, even though anecdotal evidence is very encouraging, progress toward a needed shift in pedagogy is limited, timid and localised. Long-term studies, followed by analysis of results, have not been implemented. Furthermore, where in the case of foreign languages multiple theories have been advanced and the field of SLA is a cohesive and large-scale field of study examining numerous hypotheses, with abundant literature founded on a robust body of evidence spearheading considerable progress, in the case of classical languages, there has, up until now, existed no impetus at the international level for a comprehensive and innovative research programme.

The aim of this year’s seminar will be to explore how classicists can move away from anecdotal evidence and toward a coordinated plan for the creation of an international task-force of researchers whose approach will be based on the collection and analysis of data regarding classical language instruction and whose results will lead to the subsequent creation of appropriate and comprehensive materials. With these goals in mind, the topics that will be explored in this year’s seminar will focus primarily on the presentation of SLA theory, questions pertaining to the acquisition of vocabulary and the evaluation of existing teaching resources with the design of a new curriculum in view.

This seminar is part of the ongoing research held by the laboratoire de recherches Textes et Documents de la Méditerranée Antique et Médiévale (UMR 7297) in the context of the programme “Pratiques et didactique de l'enseignement des langues anciennes” (Axe 1: “Transferts des savoirs en Méditerranée”) at Aix-Marseille Université.

 

November 12th

T. Polychronis (Aix-Marseille Université) J. Carlon (University of Massachusetts, Boston), “Teaching Ancient Greek and Latin: past, present and future perspectives”

 

November 26th

Pascale Leclercq (Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry) Amanda Edmonds (Université Côte d’Azur) “A brief Introduction to the field of Second Language Acquisition with a focus on Lexical Acquisition”

 

December 3rd

Aurélien Laporte (Sorbonne Université) T. Polychronis (Aix-Marseille Université), “Ancient Greek textbooks: an appraisal”

 

January 21st

J. Carlon, K. MacFarlane, R. Deitsch, S. Lee, T. Polychronis, “Report on the ‘Teaching Classical Languages as Languages: Theory, Practice and a Model for Transformation’ panel presented at the 2026 Society for Classical Studies Annual Meeting”

 

January 28th

Caroline Brun (Collège Jean Lachenal) & Theodosios Polychronis (Aix-Marseille Université) “Latin textbooks: an appraisal”

 

February 4th

Kelly MacFarlane (University of Alberta) “Theory and Practice of Vocabulary Development in the Communicative Classroom”

 

February 11th

Christopher Cochran (University of Massachusetts Boston), “Input Processing Theory and Classical Language Textbooks”

 

February 18th

Thibault Wagret (École Normale Supérieure), “Vocabulaire fréquentiel et enseignement de celui-ci”

 

February 25th

Teaching Ancient Greek Workshop at Université Clermont Auvergne (presenters: Theodosios Polychronis)

 

March 4th

Sherry Lee (University of California, Berkeley), “Framing the Text: Pre-Reading Strategies, Glosses, and Tiered Readers”

 

March 11th

Theodosios Polychronis (Aix-Marseille Université), “Listening to a Silent Language? Acquisition of Ancient Greek Phonology”

 

March 18th

Margaux Adam (Université Grenoble Alpes), “Comment exploiter les mots transparents pour l’acquisition du vocabulaire ?”

 

March 25th

Sandrine Dubel et Anne-Marie Favreau-Linder (Université Clermont Auvergne) “Progymnasmata et enseignement de la langue grecque”

 

April 2nd

Philippos Karaferias (Université Grenoble Alpes), “Translation Studies and Classics: Best of Friends?”

 

April 8th

Suzanne Walker (St Joseph’s University/Merion Mercy Academy), “Latin out loud: Listening Comprehension and Language acquisition in the Latin classroom”

April 15th

Rebecca Deitsch (Smith College), “Don’t forget Function Words: How Structural Understanding promotes Comprehension”

 

April 29th

Séverine Clément-Tarantino & Peggy Lecaudé (Université de Lille), “Analyse de manuels français liés à la Latinitas viva et perspectives pour l’avenir”

 

MAY 6th

Alexandra Sideridou (Université Rennes 2) “Teaching modern Greek as an L2: contributions to the teaching of Ancient Greek”

 

MAY 13th

Peter Barrios Lech (University of Massachusetts Boston), “Non-native speakers’ modelling of L2 and its impact on Reading Fluency”

 

May 20th

Jacqueline Carlon (University of Massachusetts Boston), “The effect of curriculum and pedagogy on student motivation”