Introduction
Steven Hunt (University of Cambridge)
This was the first conference here in Cambridge University dedicated to the topic of Comprehensible Input in ancient languages. I am pleased to say that we had around 40 in-person guests here and around 200 online. This I think shows the extent of interest in the topic and the importance educators are attaching to developing teaching practices and learning experiences which are more in line with how we know that human beings acquire and learn languages.
Cambridge University is the home of the Cambridge School Classics Project, which publishes the Cambridge Latin Course. Not far away, towards Haverhill, the Suburani Latin course was published by Hands Up Education. W. H. D. Rouse, the headteacher of the Perse School, just on the other side of this city, at the beginning of the 20th century, started the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching. The Association is still flourishing and I was that we had one of their representatives – Ana Martin – there that day giving us a paper. Cambridge is therefore an excellent place to be talking about the teaching key and learning of ancient languages!
I’d like to thank Prof James Warren, Faculty Head until this year, who gave me the go-ahead for running a languages conference here in the Classics Faculty. And to Dr Rosanna Omitowoju, one of the languages teaching officers here, for being a keen supporter and participant in the final discussion – she may not be present all the time as she has another university role to take care of during the day.
I would also thank Alice Case at Classics for All, the UK charity whose ambition is to get Classics Education into more and more state schools, and which had supported us with some financial assistance.
Most of all I’d like to thank Molly Willets, who is the Faculty Outreach officer here in Cambridge, who has been forever at my side working on the complex planning that such a conference requires – especially as it has grown and grown.
Without treading on the presenters’ toes, I’d very briefly explain what Comprehensible Input is. Stephen Krashen coined the term back in the 1980s (something he had not claimed to be purely his own theory). The use of, rather than knowledge about, the language is the cornerstone. Everyone pretty much agreed with the idea that masses of input in the target language is an essential component of language development. This input was most easily and efficiently achieved through listening to and hearing messages that made sense and was at the level of the listener for comprehension – or uptake – to take place. Input can also be reading – and this is perhaps more relevant to the learning of ancient languages, which is why most of our presenters that day were going to talk about reading text rather than listening to spoken Latin or Ancient Greek. Most, but not all. If reading is the choice, we need to maximise the amount of reading, make sure that it is readable, compelling so that our readers want to read more, and carefully structured so that whatever we read does not in the end displace the original texts that we want to read in the future, but which leads up to them in a gradual and carefully-plotted way. We might choose to optimise the comprehensibility of the reading material in various ways, as our presenters will show.
Keynote
Professor Christian Laes (University of Manchester)
Viva voce rather than Latine loqui. From a Case in Flanders to the International Context.
Professor Laes traced the evolution of Latin and Ancient Greek teaching in Flanders and beyond, discussing how language immersion and fluent reading have begun to replace translation and grammar-based instruction in international settings. Laes’s well-received introduction touched on the fact that what seemed novel today was in fact merely a representation of teaching and learning in the past: that is, the use of, rather than knowledge about, the languages. Not all that long ago, in the city of Cambridge itself, the famous W. H. D. Rouse, head teacher of the Perse School, initiated a series of summer school demonstrations of what came to be called the Direct Method – in which students learnt to listen to instruction in Latin and form understanding of messages that made sense to them, before becoming increasingly secure in their own use of the language. While the school no longer uses this methodology (although the Classics wing is named the Rouse Building in his honour), his influence lives on in other institutions today, to which Laes made reference in his talk, such as the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching (which Rouse himself founded), the Accademia Vivarium Novum in Frascati, and other organizations. In particular, Laes also noted the importance of music as a way of helping to internalize Latin pronunciation and prosody.
School representatives 1
Ana Martin (Latin Tutor Online; University of Barcelona alumna)
On Optimal Input and Actual Input: How Can We Turn Rote Memorizers into Readers?
Ana Martin shared practical examples from her online Latin teaching, showing how storytelling, images, gestures, and digital interactivity can enhance vocabulary acquisition and comprehension within examination constraints. Taking inspiration from ‘picture talk’, she showed how a teacher could pre-load vocabulary for a given passage, and engage students in forming a mental image of the word rather than a direct translation into their own language – an important step in helping to automatize reading comprehension of a foreign language.
Polly Philp (Emanuel School, London)
Reading Tacitus with A Level Students: Prioritising Latin over Translation.
Polly Philp’s MEd research examined how focussing on Latin reading rather than translation deepens literary understanding, offering practical classroom and assessment strategies. She showed how a consistent approach to planning lessons taught students useful strategies for dealing with complex original Latin texts at GCSE and A level.
Jude Hedges-Robinson (University of Cambridge PGCE alumnus)
Tiered Reading and Learner Confidence in Unseen Translation.
Jude Hedges-Robinson presented findings from his PGCE research on the effects of tiered reading in developing student confidence and comprehension. While tiered texts are commonly found useful as steps up to comprehending and ultimately translating ancient literature in the original, Jude showed that this principle could also be applied to developing students’ confidence in working with unseen Latin texts as commonly presented in examination classes at A level. Students were allowed free choice to use as much or as little of the different tiers to scaffold their understanding of the passage before completing the ‘official’ translation required by assessment.
University representatives 1
Dr. Mair Lloyd (Cambridge School Classics Project) and Professor James Robson (The Open University)
A Game of Two Halves: Enhancing Student Learning with Comprehensible – and Incomprehensible – Input at the Open University.
Their joint presentation explored how the OU’s Classical Latin module integrates language acquisition with cultural study, emphasizing the role of listening comprehension and authentic materials in supporting reading fluency. A particular pleasure in the presentation came from audience participation in a dialogue performed over several iterations drawn from an extract from the scene between Narcissus and Echo from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This demonstrated especially well how CI approaches could work with older students with a complex literary text.
School representative 2
Helena Walters (Haileybury College, Hertford)
From Classroom to Cambridge: A Case Study in Comprehensible Input Teaching.
Helena Walters presented a longitudinal case study of a pupil’s journey from first-year Latin to successful university admission, demonstrating how CI can sustain engagement and academic achievement. Helena showed how multiple repetitions of sentences, through tiered texts and pyramid texts, could help students develop confidence in understanding ancient languages.
University representative 2
Dr. Cressida Ryan (University of Oxford/Wolfson College)
Comprehensible Input as a Tool for Flexible and Inclusive Teaching by Design.
Cressida Ryan discussed how CI can support inclusive pedagogy by design, particularly for neurodivergent learners, drawing on case studies from New Testament Greek. Her talk gave listeners many pointers towards understanding what the principle of ‘Universal Design for Learning’ might look like in the ancient languages classroom and why it matters.
School representative 3
Eugenia Manolidou (Elliniki Agogi, Athens)
Ancient Greek: A new Approach to Classical Methods.
Eugenia Manolidou presented the experiential, arts-based approach of Elliniki Agogi, School of Ancient Greek, and demonstrated how music, drama, and artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced materials can provide engaging input for primary and secondary school students. Eugenia’s approach has always been to encourage students to participate in active approaches to learning Ancient Greek. Traditional approaches seem to emphasize the continuing legacy and impact of Ancient on Modern Greek, and the methods used at Elliniki Agogi are designed to facilitate that in due course, but by starting off with familiar fables and stories which engage young students in such a way that they learn not to fear Ancient Greek.
Conclusions
Steven Hunt and Rosanna Omitowoju (University of Cambridge)
Across the sessions, speakers emphasized the importance of aligning ancient language pedagogy with findings from modern linguistics and educational psychology. The tone of the conference reflected a shared willingness among educators and institutions to re-examine traditional methods and adopt evidence-based strategies that make classical languages accessible without compromising rigour.
Video recordings of the presentations for this conference will be made available through the Faculty of Classics to facilitate continued dialogue among international colleagues. See www.classics.cam.ac.uk/seminars/comprehensible-input-ancient-languages-teaching-conference.
We intend to run another conference on ancient languages teaching and learning in 2026.
Open access
