Active Learning:
The key to learning Latin

John C. Gruber-Miller (Cornell College)

Many consider reading approach and traditional approach to teaching Latin as diametrically opposed, making a distinction between implicit and explicit instruction. Yet recent research has not offered conclusive advantages for either an inductive or deductive approach. Having begun my career as a teacher who used a traditional grammar-based text and most recently last summer when I taught using Wheelock, but who now regularly uses a reading text when given the choice, I would argue that either approach can be effective if one emphasizes active learning vs. passive learning. In active learning, students work together to create meaning. They have multiple opportunities to read Latin and formulate its rules, and they understand texts through a variety of activities. I will offer examples of active vs. passive learning to illustrate the principles of active learning and I will offer teachers concrete ways that they can create more active lesson plans so that they can get the most out either type of textbook. In short, it is not the textbook, but the type of learning that students do that is most important in helping them learn Latin.