Sunday 21st November 2010 saw the launch of an exciting £2.5million campaign to restore the teaching of Latin and Greek to all state school students in Britain within ten years. With celebrity supporters such as Joanna Lumley, Boris Johnson and Tom Stoppard, the campaign, lead by classics enthusiast Bettany Hughes, aims to ensure that more than current 16% of state schools offer at least one of the subjects.
The learning of classical languages is proven to help British learners of romance languages, particularly of French, Spanish and Italian, for they already have a basic grounding in the grammatical patterns. In addition, however good a translation of a piece of literature, there are always some aspects which can only truly be appreciated if the piece is read in its original language. A wide range of classical literature in its original text would be opened up to people if they were equipped with the language skills. Learning Latin is also proven to improve pupils’ standards across the curriculum, particularly in English and Maths, and classics graduates can expect to enjoy a higher employment rate than the majority of other arts graduates.
Personally, I believe that the campaign is a brilliant idea, and hope it will be effective. A couple of years ago I had the chance to learn a small amount of Latin at Weald. Even the basics have proved to be helpful as I now attempt to read medieval French literature!
This information in this post was taken from an article published in “The Sunday Times” on 21/11/2010.
The learning of classical languages is proven to help British learners of romance languages, particularly of French, Spanish and Italian, for they already have a basic grounding in the grammatical patterns. In addition, however good a translation of a piece of literature, there are always some aspects which can only truly be appreciated if the piece is read in its original language. A wide range of classical literature in its original text would be opened up to people if they were equipped with the language skills. Learning Latin is also proven to improve pupils’ standards across the curriculum, particularly in English and Maths, and classics graduates can expect to enjoy a higher employment rate than the majority of other arts graduates.
Personally, I believe that the campaign is a brilliant idea, and hope it will be effective. A couple of years ago I had the chance to learn a small amount of Latin at Weald. Even the basics have proved to be helpful as I now attempt to read medieval French literature!
This information in this post was taken from an article published in “The Sunday Times” on 21/11/2010.
Come to Greek language club Monday Week 1 in B4 and Greek dancing Thursday Week 2 in the drama studio! Classical languages and classical civilisation are so important and valued at top universities! Lots of words come from Greek and are linked to different languages, so when you know this language it helps you learn vocab in different languages. Any questions, you know who to ask in school !:)
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