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Yes, but its (very-)sub-optimal, hard, and the results might be less than stellar. But you might also have not that much choice. There are few Latin speakers in Australia. A few Gàidhlig speakers. Less ancient Greek speakers. Opportunities for communication events are limited. And what if your situation
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Our friend James helpfully asked: Did you ever have communicative Greek training with a more fluent speaker? If not, how did you get to this point? Do you have a post on what you did? Despite the apparent contradiction, do you think it's possible to therefore get to
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Obviously quite a bit of the education I’m involved with is theological. I think some of the concern I express in this post pertain to non-theological contexts and colleges, but mutatis mutandis. The issue is this: when a student can pursue an entire theological degree online, via distance,
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Even though I have negative free time, lately I've been trying my hand at new things. Firstly, I've put up a few videos on youtube. They are a 'talk-through' of the Greek text of Melito's On Easter, 1-2. There'
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I not-infrequently talk about different types of encountering language with the following schema: Schoolroom Is when you're in a literal classroom with books, and you're learning 'about' foreign language, as something far, far removed from you, as this exotic and abstract 'other&
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This week in my meandering series, let me talk variously about other distance education environments I’ve experienced. I did the mainstay of my Latin studies as an external student at the University of New England (in Australia, not those other New Englands in other former colonies). A four year
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Well, semester 2 at various institutions here is under way, and I feel like some reflections upon distance education are in order. This might be part one of several... I might begin by talking about this semester. Last semester, regular sufferers of his blog will recall, I taught a small
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I’m sure I didn’t come up with this idea, and I know we’re not the first, but ever since emails started circulating prior to Rusticatio Australiana, a few of us discussed playing an RPG. In this post, I’m going to write a bit about that experience,
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Long-term sufferers of my blog know of my strong interest in Where Are Your Keys and all its applications. I knew that Evan had had a good deal of involvement with our American Latinist friends for a period, and was interested to see how this manifested at Rusticatio. Here’
Latin
I’ve just returned from the first Rusticatio Australiana, where I have spent the week speaking Latin and nothing but. In this post I am going to give part-narration, part-reflection on the week just gone (look for another post in the coming weeks though!) Firstly, what’s a
Language
Amicus noster, in pipiatione nuper hoc misit, atque hic quoque ponendum esse dixit. Here's a wonderful letter from Albin Putzker, in 1895. plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. You can see the original in situ. The footnotes, nisi fallor, are Arcadius Avellanus offering his
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I recently had occasion to complete a (modern) language placement test. The test was composed of 20 sections, each asking me to manipulate given sentences and change the forms to other ones (e.g. the equivalents of present to past, one structure to another, and so on). It wasn'