Introduction and research context

This research explores the utility of Latin as an aid to the acquisition of modern Italian. Latin is the root of the Romance languages, and consequently many words in Italian derive directly from Latin or are cognate with Latin words. Lexical connections between the languages could therefore prove useful for students learning Italian. The motivations for researching this particular area stem from the current trend of valuing subject areas in terms of their ‘utility’ to learners. Through this research I hope to show that Latin should be valued not only intrinsically, but also that it has extrinsic value as an aid to learning modern languages.

This research was carried out in a selective independent girls’ school, in an urban setting but taking students from a wide area across the county. The class was extra-curricular, composed of nine students who (except one student who joined late) had all studied Latin for at least three years. They were of average-high attainment, with MidYIS scores averaging at 122 (lowest 108, highest 150). These students were all new to learning Italian, and through the lessons were encouraged to use their knowledge of Latin to aid their learning of Italian, focusing on vocabulary acquisition. I devised tasks to facilitate the use of Latin in the acquisition and recall of Italian vocabulary, and to encourage students to make links between the languages as a method of improving proficiency in the reading of Italian. Students were provided with strategies to aid vocabulary learning, by drawing their attention to lexical connections between the languages in order to facilitate vocabulary acquisition based upon orthographic, phonological and semantic association between words. While the study primarily evaluated the utility of lexical crossover between the two languages as an aid for learning Italian, students were also asked to feed back on the extent to which they felt that the tasks were consolidating their knowledge of Latin. This research therefore takes both a cognitive and a metacognitive approach; the cognitive strand encompassed students completing vocabulary learning tasks, and in turn assessing their response to and the success of these tasks; and secondly on a metacognitive level it encouraged them to reflect on these tasks to refine their approach and thereby facilitate accelerated activation of cognate and derivative vocabulary.

Literature Review

Considerable attention has been given to the subject of vocabulary acquisition in recent years, in particular assessing the efficacy of techniques to facilitate the acquisition of vocabulary in the second language (L2). Literature has tended to focus on two strands: firstly, why vocabulary learning is an important part of language acquisition, and its relationship to other areas of language acquisition such as grammar; secondly, what vocabulary learning strategies are most effective in allowing students to learn as well as to retain vocabulary. While the centrality of the role of vocabulary learning is generally accepted in the field of second language acquisition (Oxford, Reference Oxford2011, p. 254), much more debated are the various methods by which a learner can embed vocabulary into the long-term memory (Oxford, Reference Oxford2011, p. 255). This encompasses the strengths and weaknesses of different vocabulary acquisition strategies, and which methods are most efficient for learners. It is important to note, however, that not all learners fall into the same category: different strategies, or different combinations of strategies, are necessary for different types of learners (Nation, Reference Nation2001, pp. 225-226). For example presenting vocabulary alongside pictures may aid visual learners (Gruber-Miller, Reference Gruber-Miller2006, p. 36), while contextual guessing may be a more efficient strategy for comprehension learners than field-independent learners (Oxford, Reference Oxford2011, p. 255).

Resulting from an almost exponential increase of research into vocabulary acquisition in the past three decades (Lightbown and Spada, Reference Lightbown and Spada2006, p. 96), the importance of vocabulary in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) is almost universally acknowledged. This follows a transition away from an emphasis on syntax and on morphology in the 1980s. As Lightbown and Spada pointed out: ‘We can communicate by using words that are not placed in the proper order, pronounced perfectly, or marked with the proper grammatical morphemes, but communication often breaks down if we do not use the correct word’ (p. 96). While they do point out that circumlocution and gestures can sometime compensate (a debatable assertion, as the meaning of gestures can vary across cultures), vocabulary is the key to ensuring that meaning is fully communicated. A word can be pronounced incorrectly or be used in the incorrect grammatical form, but use the incorrect lexical item and the sense and meaning of the communication are rendered ineffective. While pronunciation and being able to categorise new vocabulary are important, skills such as listening, speaking and writing depend almost wholly upon knowledge of vocabulary. Barcroft (Reference Barcroft2004, p. 201) models the difference between grammar and vocabulary in terms of conveying meaning with the examples of ‘it snow’ compared to ‘it nevs’, and ‘he want spoon’ compared to ‘he wants a fork’. The first of both sets of sentences is grammatically incorrect, but conveys the correct meaning, whereas the second of each pair is grammatically correct, but the meaning is either incomprehensible or changed due to incorrect use of vocabulary. At a basic level vocabulary is of utmost importance to convey the meaning of a communication; other elements, while important to achieve proficiency in a language, serve to raise the accuracy of communication.

My research investigated whether the process of vocabulary acquisition and retention in Italian could be accelerated by the use of Latin derivatives and cognates. Vocabulary is central to achieving not only basic communication, but also higher proficiency in the target language. The size of vocabulary needed to reach conversational proficiency in a language is significant: the Italian language is estimated to comprise of anywhere between 215,000 and 270,000 distinct lexical units, resulting in over 2 million usable forms, of which a native speaker will know about 20,000 word families. A learner will need a vocabulary of about 2,000 words to be able to participate in everyday conversation (Lightbown and Spada, Reference Lightbown and Spada2006, p. 96). As Oxford (Reference Oxford2011, p. 254) notes, academic achievement in a language rests largely upon vocabulary knowledge, a conclusion which reinforces that emphasised repeatedly by Nation (Reference Nation1990, p. 2001). In contrast with, for example, grammar rules, which can be learned and then be reused and applied to any word or sentence, the quantity of words necessary to achieve a conversational level of communication can appear daunting to learners, not only in the learning process in the first place, but then in the retention of vocabulary, particularly if not used frequently.

Vocabulary learning strategies are an indispensable tool for this reason, as learners need an extensive vocabulary which can be readily accessed. However, after several years of study, many adult learners know fewer than 5,000 word-families, which is roughly the same number as children who are native speakers have when starting school (Nation and Waring, Reference Nation, Waring, Schmitt and McCarthy1997; Oxford, Reference Oxford2011). While Oxford (Reference Oxford2011) fails to note the impacts of the different learning environments of a child learning L1 in complete immersion and an L2 learner with an embedded L1, it is true to say that adult learners can be hindered in vocabulary acquisition when they do not use the appropriate strategies to learn efficiently. For example, studies on the rote learning of vocabulary have presented us with evidence that it correlates negatively with vocabulary size (see Gu and Johnson, Reference Gu and Johnson1996), probably as the mind seems to store words in an organised, interconnected manner, rather than words on a list (Nation, Reference Nation1990; Oxford, Reference Oxford2011). However, learners themselves viewed it as an essential strategy for vocabulary learning. This was illustrated by Schmitt (Reference Schmitt, Schmitt and McCarthy1997), who showed that rote oral and written repetition was viewed as important to Japanese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners, and that strategies using evidence within the English itself, or parallels across languages were viewed unfavourably. This suggests that personal or cultural perception can influence the choice of strategy, leading to inefficient vocabulary learning. This reinforces the point made by Nation and Waring (Reference Nation, Waring, Schmitt and McCarthy1997) and Oxford (Reference Oxford2011) that poor choice of strategy can inhibit effective learning. As Aebersold and Field (Reference Aebersold and Field1997) make clear throughout their research, many exposures to a word are needed in different contexts before it is added to the long-term memory (this is the issue with rote learning, which lacks the contextual element). The evidence shows that the effective deployment of vocabulary learning strategies can often help this process (Oxford and Scarcella, Reference Oxford and Scarcella1994).

Vocabulary learning strategies have the following features:

1. 1) they involve choice, meaning that there are several strategies to choose from;

2. 2) they consist of several steps;

3. 3) they require knowledge and benefit from training; and

4. 4) they increase the efficiency of vocabulary learning and use

   (Nation, Reference Nation2001, p. 217).

Multiple studies have found different vocabulary learning strategies to have had positive effects. Oxford (Reference Oxford2011) summarises the strategies which have received positive support from either empirical or theoretical studies, including: using or creating vocabulary clusters or webs (Nation, Reference Nation1990; Oxford, Reference Oxford1990); TPR (Total Physical Response) techniques and use of real objects for vocabulary learning (Oxford, Reference Oxford1990; Thornbury, Reference Thornbury2002); dictionary look-up (Gu and Johnson, Reference Gu and Johnson1996; McDonough, Reference McDonough1999); the ‘keyword technique’, linking sounds and images (Beaton, Gruneberg and Ellis, Reference Beaton, Gruneberg and Ellis1995; Oxford, Reference Oxford1990); early and self-initiated use of new words (Gu and Johnson Reference Gu and Johnson1996; Oxford, Reference Oxford1990); selective attention, note taking, and reading for vocabulary learning (Gu and Johnson, Reference Gu and Johnson1996); linking new information with existing information and keeping a vocabulary book (Oxford, Reference Oxford1990); mentally linking synonyms, constructing meanings and analogies, using personal experiences to develop vocabulary, and making t-charts (Oxford, Reference Oxford1990). Contextual guessing has received mixed responses, with Oxford (Reference Oxford1990) praising it, and Gu and Johnson (Reference Gu and Johnson1996) finding that it correlated with vocabulary size and overall proficiency. However, Lawson and Hogben (Reference Lawson and Hogben1998), in a study of Australian learners of Italian, showed that a rich context reduced the need to actually know the word. They noted that learners were able to infer the meaning without paying attention to the word itself. Contextual guessing has also met criticism through studies which show that the learner needs to know approximately 95% of the surrounding words to be accurate in their guess. Nation (Reference Nation2001, p. 233) concludes that students need to know 19 in 20 words to be able to guess successfully the meaning of a word from context; one in ten unknown words has shown little successful guessing (Laufer and Sim, Reference Laufer and Sim1985b; Bensoussan and Laufer, Reference Bensoussan and Laufer1984), and one in 50 is the optimum. This is not to say that contextual guessing is not a helpful strategy; in relation to using cognates and derivatives as a strategy, using context may help students check and confirm they have ascertained the correct meaning of a word.

My research concerned the strategy of using derivatives and cognates from Latin to aid the acquisition of Italian as L2. A derivative is defined as the formation of a new word or inflectable stem from another word or stem; these words are etymologically related, but have changed in form over a period of time. An example is the Latin laborare changing into the Italian lavorare. Cognates are words which have the same linguistic derivation as another and are ‘the vocabulary items in two different languages that are similar both orthographically and semantically’ (Solak and Cakir Reference Solak and Cakir2012, p. 431); in Italian there are words which we can label cognates with the Latin as the root word has itself not altered in its basic form, for example, the Latin tristis and the Italian triste. Takaèč (Reference Takaè2008, p. 62), while recognising that looking at the etymology of words could benefit learners, considers using cognates as a strategy largely ineffective: ‘although the strategy of word formation analysis, especially if it includes attention to etymology, that is to cognates (cf. Bellomo, 1999), can be very useful, its contribution seems irrelevant if the learner has already successfully inferred the word's meaning from the context.’ This research in my study aimed to consider whether this assertion was true or not, and what (if any) benefit learners gained from using cognates as an acquisition strategy.

There has been a variety of studies carried out on the use of cognates in SLA, although the area is not nearly as extensively researched as some of the other vocabulary learning strategies mentioned above. The research into the use of derivations to aid L2 acquisition is even less researched, and with regard to Latin has been more commonly looked at in terms of improving vocabulary knowledge in the L1. While there does exist a number of studies into the utility of cognate use as a vocabulary learning strategy (eg. Holmes and Ramos, Reference Holmes, Ramos, Huckin, Haynes and Coady1993; Kroll et al., Reference Kroll, Michael and Sankaranarayanan1998; Lotto and De Groot,Reference Lotto and De Groot1998), the research has looked exclusively at the use of cognates between L1 and L2, rather than an L2 and an L3, an area which my study will focus on. These abovementioned studies of bilingualism and cognate use have focused on learning two modern languages, and consequently there is little research on whether using derivational morphology as a learning strategy aids vocabulary acquisition in a language. Studies do, however, tend to note the importance of Latin as a common root in European languages sharing cognates (Otwinowska, Reference Otwinowska2016, p. 87). It is therefore surprising that there is little research into the use of Latin as a facilitator in the vocabulary acquisition of such languages, when its importance has been noted in the lexical similarities between European languages. My study therefore sat in this gap with the aim of investigating the efficacy of Latin derivatives and cognates as a vocabulary acquisition tool in learning Italian, filling the gap left by the lack of L2-L3 studies.

Research seems largely agreed on that the ability to utilise cognates and derivations can help learners process and retain vocabulary, particularly in a reading setting. Nation (Reference Nation2001) discusses the value of learning the etymology of a word for learners of English, and concludes that understanding the procedures by which words are formed can help the learning of the words themselves; ‘the value of etymology for learners of English is that it can help make some words more memorable. That is, it can help learning’ (Nation, Reference Nation2001, p. 280). Nation, however, provides no evidence of any study to back up this claim. Retention of vocabulary, essentially whether knowledge of Latin roots makes Italian words more memorable, formed part of my research to assess the veracity of Nation's assertion. Nation also points out that the study of cognates and loan words may be especially useful when there are significant changes to the forms of the words, though in these cases the need to actively point out connections is paramount, as learners themselves may not be able to make the connections initially of their own accord.

Otwinowska (Reference Otwinowska2016) discusses the evidence produced by studies into cognate vocabulary in language acquisition. She concludes that cognate words are easier for learners to learn in the first instance, and then to retrieve later on. Several studies back up this conclusion, and indicate advantages of using cognate recognition as a vocabulary learning strategy over other techniques. For example, Kroll et al. (Reference Kroll, Michael and Sankaranarayanan1998) and Lotto and De Groot (Reference Lotto and De Groot1998) contrasted various word association and picture association methods, and vocabulary learning within both paradigms ‘revealed a huge advantage of cognates over non-cognates’ (Otwinowska, Reference Otwinowska2016, p. 80). The study carried out by Lotto and De Groot (Reference Lotto and De Groot1998) tested the learning of 80 Italian words by 56 adult Dutch learners previously unfamiliar with Italian. The evidence showed overwhelmingly that ‘cognates and high-frequency words were easier to learn than non-cognates and low frequency words’ (Lotto and De Groot, Reference Lotto and De Groot1998, p. 31). The cognate pairs used in the study were similar in orthography and phonology, so it was concluded that the learner's recognition of either type of relationship (or both) might facilitate learning. Although, as Barcroft (Reference Barcroft2004, p. 201) emphasises, vocabulary learning is semantic rather than form-based, cognates have the added value of similar orthography and/or phonology to reinforce the semantic meaning.

Several theories have been put forward about the facilitating effects of cognateness on vocabulary learning, all concerning how vocabulary is processed and stored in the mental lexicon. Lotto and De Groot (Reference Lotto and De Groot1998) and De Groot and Keijzer (Reference De Groot and Keijzer2000) have proposed the three possible reasons for enhanced learning of cognate vocabulary:

1. 1) if the word is an orthographic neighbour, there is less to be learned;

2. 2) cognates act as a stimulus for the retrieval of the word in L1; and

3. 3) a cognate relation can be considered a case of morphological relation which may exist between words within the same language (although this assumes that bilingual/multilingual memory is organised by morphology, the same as monolingual memory).

These proposals all return to the same key idea: learning a cognate word is easier than learning a non-cognate word as it only involves adapting what already exists in the brain, rather than creating a new representation. Otwinowska concludes that ‘the learning process is less demanding for the learner, which results in the effects of enhanced learning’ (Otwinowska Reference Otwinowska2016, 82).

It is agreed that ‘learners will find one language far easier to learn than another if the one language shows many lexical similarities with their native language and the other does not’ (Odlin, Reference Odlin1989, p. 79). Research on groups of closely related languages has found that ‘cross-linguistic similarities provided by cognate pairs aid understanding in an unknown language’ (Otwinowska, Reference Otwinowska2016, p. 82). Studies such as Gooskens and Van Bezooijen (Reference Gooskens and Van Bezooijen2006), Gooskens et al. (Reference Gooskens, Kürschner and Van Bezooijen2011), and Vanhove (Reference Vanhove2014) have looked at receptive bilingualism and multilingualism in closely related Germanic languages, and have demonstrated that cognate pairs aided understanding in the L2. Otwinowska (Reference Otwinowska2016, p. 82) suggests that we can therefore assume that the same would be true of other related European language clusters, for example the Romance languages. However, while this is a logical conclusion to reach, no evidence is provided to substantiate this claim. Otwinowska (Reference Otwinowska2016, p. 85) also notes that a ‘considerable bulk of modern vocabulary in European languages derives from Latin or Greek’, and it is therefore surprising that there is little research into how utilising knowledge of these ancient languages can help a learner of a closely related modern Romance language. This might be owed to, as Nagy and Townsend (Reference Nagy and Townsend2012) conclude, the fact that words derived from Latin are more common in formal styles of L1 and more academic discourse, implying that use of derivations from Latin, or indeed use of cognate pairs between languages descended from Latin, has been perceived to only become more effective as a strategy once a learner is beyond conversational proficiency. As the participants in my study were beginners in Italian, I had the opportunity to assess this claim, and to see whether cognate pairs could be an effective strategy before students reach conversational proficiency (providing the students were given the correct strategies to employ).

The three theories put forward about facilitating effects of cognateness by Lotto and De Groot (Reference Lotto and De Groot1998) and De Groot and Keijzer (Reference De Groot and Keijzer2000) imply that the way cognates are stored and retrieved in the mental lexicon make them a valuable asset to language learners. However, there are ‘surprisingly few pedagogically orientated studies, and the evidence they produce is mixed’ (Otwinowska, Reference Otwinowska2016, p. 85). Some learners find it difficult to take advantage of cognates, even if they are obvious; teachers prefer to draw learners’ attention to ‘false friends’ rather than cognates, resulting in an ‘innate suspicion of cognates on the part of the learner’ (Otwinowska, Reference Otwinowska2016, p. 91). Studies repeatedly show that learners either ignore cognates, or do not notice them in the first place, including those conducted by Banta (Reference Banta1981), Dressler et al. (Reference Dressler, Carlo, Snow, August and White2011), Kellerman (Reference Kellerman, Gass and Selinker1983), Lightbown and Libben (Reference Lightbown, Libben and Anderson1984), Nagy et al. (Reference Nagy, Diakidoy and Anderson1993), Odlin (Reference Odlin1989), Otwinowska-Kasztelanic (Reference Otwinowska-Kasztelanic2009, Reference Otwinowska-Kasztelanic, De Angelis and Dewaele2011a), Schmitt (Reference Schmitt, Schmitt and McCarthy1997), Singleton (Reference Singleton and Arabski2006) and Swan (Reference Swan, Schmitt and McCarthy1997). Odlin concludes that ‘more and more research on contrastive lexical semantics shows that recognition of cognates is often a problem. Learners may not always note the formal similarities that mark a cognate relation, and they may not always believe that there is a real cognate relationship’ (Odlin, Reference Odlin1989, p. 79). The question to be resolved therefore appears to concern methods to help learners recognise and activate cognate vocabulary.

Some classroom studies have returned positive results on cognate use. Holmes and Ramos (Reference Holmes, Ramos, Huckin, Haynes and Coady1993) ran a study on Brazilian undergraduates, who were beginners in English and were given texts to read. Data were gathered using the ‘think-aloud’ method. This method of data collection contained a methodological flaw in that students were put into groups to recognise cognates, so it is not clear whether all students recognised them or not. Nevertheless, it seems that Holmes and Ramos accurately predicted a suspicion of cognates, due to the idea of ‘false friends’. It also appears that the learners naturally sought out cognate vocabulary to aid understanding. Ard and Homburg (Reference Ard, Homburg, Gass and Selinker1983) compared a group of Spanish L1 learners of English as L2, with a group of Arabic L1 learners of English as L2. They found that the Spanish group progressed more quickly than the Arabic group as they were able to recognise cognates, and also had more time to concentrate on the unfamiliar non-cognate vocabulary. Both of these studies, as with most studies of cognate vocabulary, have been conducted with learners of English L1-L2. It therefore seems necessary to see whether similar results could be replicated within different language clusters, and from L2-L3, as was examined in my study.

The majority of classroom studies have found that learners tend to either avoid cognates or remain oblivious to their relationship with words in their L1. Lightbown and Libben (Reference Lightbown, Libben and Anderson1984) conducted a classroom study of French L1 learners of English. The students watched a film in English which contained obvious cognates, and then had to write a summary in English, followed by a summary in French. The cognate words did not reappear in the French essay. The groups also underwent a test and a word acceptability task to activate cognate vocabulary; however learners were still reluctant to utilise the cognate words. They concluded that learners need to encounter cognate words in specific context in the TL before accepting them and attempting to use them. Similarly, Nagy et al. (Reference Nagy, Diakidoy and Anderson1993), found during a study on Spanish bilingual and biliterate teenage students of English that students struggled to recognise cognate vocabulary. They were given a yes/no multiple-choice vocabulary test in Spanish and English to check their word knowledge, and then asked to search for cognates in a text. The participants only circled about half of the words in the text they had already shown that they knew, indicating that they were unable to recognise and capitalise upon cognate vocabulary. This indicates that ‘although cognates may be deliberately used in language texts, if they are not explained, many students never see the relationship of these cognates to words in their own language’ (Rubin, Reference Rubin, Wenden and Rubin1987, p. 16). Holmes and Ramos (Reference Holmes, Ramos, Huckin, Haynes and Coady1993) interestingly also suggest that teachers who are native speakers of the target language are at fault for perpetuating the inability of learners to access cognate vocabulary. If they do not share the learner's L1 then it is impossible for them to facilitate the use of cognate vocabulary.

Otwinowska concludes that ‘proficiency is key in using cognates as a vocabulary acquisition strategy’ (2016, p. 124). She points to Brenders et al. (Reference Brenders, Van Hell and Dijkstra2011) who postulated that cognates only help in the L1 if the L2 proficiency is high. In L2 they can recognise cognates from L1, but not the other way around until the L2 is proficient. However, this seems somewhat contradictory. For vocabulary acquisition in an L2, this evidence indicates that actually a learner doesn't need to be proficient to be able to recognise cognates in L2 using their knowledge of L1, they only need to be proficient in L2 to unlock benefits in their L1 as well. Poarch and Van Hell (2011) also show that cognate effects are smaller in L1, but larger in L2 and L3 processing. Rather than proficiency being the key to unlock cognate vocabulary, the evidence appears to show that the ability to recognise cognates is what determines its success as a vocabulary acquisition strategy, rather than the proficiency of the learner. In Nagy's 1993 study even the Spanish bilingual subjects had difficulty recognising cognate vocabulary. This implies that for learners of a second language it is the need to develop strategies to recognise and utilise cognates rather than simply proficiency level in L2 and L3 which is important. As my study was conducted with beginners, I was able to assess the merit of strategies over proficiency in the activation of cognate vocabulary.

Tréville (Reference Tréville1996) conducted a study which indicated that learners need training in strategies to recognise cognates to make it an effective vocabulary strategy. He split the subjects into two groups; the experimental group received training in cognate recognition, and the control group did not. The study found that the experimental group were more efficient at identifying cognates, their grammatical categories, and their lexical rules than the control group was. This indicates that equipping learners with strategies helps them benefit from cognate vocabulary. Surprisingly, the research on training students to utilise their existing language knowledge to work out new vocabulary is sparse, and focuses on the learning of English as a foreign language. As most studies across all areas of cognate research have involved using cognates between students’ L1 and English as an L2; there is a notable absence of research into using an L2 to aid vocabulary acquisition in a L3. Further missing from research is the student voice concerning the use of derivatives and cognates as a vocabulary acquisition strategy; Nyikos and Fan (Reference Nyikos, Fan, Cohen and Macaro2007) noted the need to pay more attention to the learner's own voice, that is their own perceptions about cognitive processes involved in various acquisition strategies, and which strategies they themselves found most effective. My study will approach these areas in accordance with the gaps in research.

Research questions and lesson sequence

This study focused on vocabulary acquisition and retention, using cognates and derivatives between two languages from the same family, Latin to Italian, as a learning strategy. The following research questions were addressed:

1. 1. Does learning Italian vocabulary utilising Latin cognate and derivative-based materials affect students’ vocabulary retention?

2. 2. Does providing students with strategies to identify Italian words based on their knowledge of Latin help with reading Italian?

3. 3. Do students find it useful to make links between Latin and Italian as a method of acquiring and retaining vocabulary?

4. 4. Is proficiency a barrier to being able to use cognate vocabulary?

The study was conducted with nine students. None had prior knowledge of Italian, and all but one studied Latin for at least three years. Lessons (five of 30 minutes, once a week) were designed to provide students with cognate recognition strategies and check vocabulary recognition and retention. Lesson 1 introduced students to common Italian words closely derived from Latin and the focus was upon drawing out orthographic and phonological similarities between the Italian and Latin. Students completed a survey following the lesson commenting upon their experience of working out word meaning using their Latin. Lesson 2 continued introducing students to more vocabulary, and included a quiz on the words learnt in lesson 1 to check retention. Lesson 3 focused on a reading activity containing derivatives and cognates chosen because they were etymologically related to Latin words students studied in the first^t book of the Cambridge Latin Course (Cambridge School Classics Project, 1998). This assessed student ability to recognise cognate vocabulary in unfamiliar contexts. Students worked in pairs and talked through their process in translating words and phrases. Lesson 4 introduced students to two sets of Italian adjectives, one with Latin prompts but no English, one with just English, no Latin. Students completed speaking activities using both sets of adjectives. Students filled out a survey following the class commenting upon their use of Latin in working out meaning. Lesson 5 included a quiz to check retention of the adjectives and see whether those learned with the Latin were more effectively retained than those learned without.