MY NARRATIVE ON SECOND LANGUAGE LITERACY

Along with French, Kiswahili and English, Latin was one of the second/foreign languages I have learned in high school for six years. It was a required class for my major which was Latin and Modern Languages. The method used was, of course, grammar-translation, French being the medium of instruction. Writing process varied from level to level. However, class activities involved two-way translation drills: Latin-French (Version) and French-Latin (Theme).

In advanced classes (4th-6th year), students were allowed to use bilingual dictionaries whereas in lower classes (1-3), learners could not use dictionaries because vocabulary was a part of skills to check on. Actually, quizzes and exams for lower classes were designed according to their knowledge in vocabulary they had from previous classes. (It was a routine to have one to two vocabularies quizzes a week)! I did enjoy them! In advanced classes, literary translation for classics such as Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid was preferred to the literal translation. Grammar and accuracy were obviously recommended.

In class activities and exams (for advanced classes), reading and writing went together because before translating, students had to read the text and re-construct it (re-organize a Latin text according to French syntax) baring in mind French canons with regard to grammar and logic analysis.

Latin class was relatively tough and students would sometimes complain about learning a dead language and teachers would ironically reply: “Latin is not dead; as a matter of fact, you’ll die before it.” Were teachers wrong?

Latin class was very rewarding to me for a couple of reasons:

• Resource: It was a great resource for my history class because Latin was the language of the Roman Empire that dominated the world especially Europe for centuries (756BC-1456AD). Most of Latin literature texts recalled Europe history;

• Etymology: A good number of French terms (and some in English) especially in science, law, diplomacy come from Latin;

• Reasoning: Re-construction and translation were good drills to sharpen my reasoning skills.

I got to teach writing classes in English, French, Kinyarwanda and Kiswahili. The focus was grammar, accuracy and error correction; and I find myself now in pre-process generation; that is product and product only! What a long way for me to go so as to catch up with process before entering the post-process era!