New England Classical Journal

CLASSICAL COMPUTING

LATIN SKILLS I AND II

LATIN SKILLS I(VERB FACTORY, CURSUS HONORUM, MARE NOSTRUM) $250; LATIN SKILLS II (TRANSLAT, ARTIFEX VERBORUM, LECTOR) $250. Falcon Software, Inc., P.O. Box 200, Wentworth, NH 03282; phone (603) 764-5788.

This double set of programs was first developed by Gerald R. Culley at the University of Delaware quite a few years ago, but has been recently updated. The version that I received for reviewing is copyrighted 1991. These programs are available either for IBM compatibles (using DOS) or for Apple II computers. Moreover, on both platforms the programs can be adapted to mesh with five different textbooks; indeed, on the one IBM program disk you get all the textbook versions. I reviewed the Jenney version, but there are also versions for Wheelock, Goldman & Nyenhuis, Ullman, and Moreland & Fleischer.

LATIN SKILLS I for the IBM PC comes in a elegant loose-leaf binder with three regular (DSDD) 3.5' disks (5.25' by request) and a manual of 70 pages. LATIN SKILLS II comes in a typical plastic folder with three disks and a stapled manual of 43 pages. Each disk holds one program and the programs will run with any version of DOS above 2.1, but not with Windows (except in the DOS Box). The manual for LATIN SKILLS I is particularly easy to use and both manuals are clearly organized and well written. The system of programs requires some set-up because the files come in compressed form, but the directions are easy to follaw, if you have had some experience with computers; otherwise you will want to get the computer person at your school to help you create and set up the student disks. Before you invest in this set of programs you should be aware that though their other hardware expectations are very modest, they do require the presence of an operational mouse. Once set up the programs do load relatively quickly, even from floppy disks, and run fairly smoothly, without long waits when you go on to the next part of the program. None of the programs has record-keeping facilities. The order of presentation in the manuals was VERB FACTORY, CURSUS HONORUM, and MARE NOSTRUM in SKILLS I and TRANSLAT, ARTIFEX VERBORUM, and LECTOR in SKILLS II; and that is the order that I followed in reviewing them.

LATIN SKILLS I and II do not refer to the stage of progress through a course of study, but rather the degree of difficulty or cumulative skill needed. LATIN SKILLS I deals generally with morphology throughout the course, while SKILLS II deals with syntax and translation. Moreover, the SKILLS I programs try to be more personal and comforting and game-oriented; they ask for your name which they use during the program. SKILLS II is all business. Finally, the material presented in SKILLS I is less susceptible to idiosyncratic methodology (though there are a few points on which teachers will vary, e.g. not segregating the conjugation vowel, allowing nouns before quantitative adjectives, etc.), while the material in SKILLS II is more subject to the vagaries and vicissitudes of pedagogy and nomenclature. The setup of the programs is as follows:

VERB FACTORY:
Students select one of the sequenced textbook-correlated exercises, then they select an interactive preview of the new morphological construction or the exercise itself, where they are given an English translation of a Latin verb or verbal phrase and asked to give the Latin form. If they miss twice, they can then get a series of multiple choice prompts that visually construct the correct form before their wondering eyes. At the end there is a performance report.

CURSUS HONORUM:
Students select one verb or a series of conjugations with which to work; they then select the chapter or are allowed to revise the range of verb forms reviewed. The students then choose one of two formats for the review: 1) they are given a grammatical label and the Latin dictionary form (with principal parts) and are asked to type in the correct form (in the amount of time set), or 2) they are given the Latin form (and the principal parts, if they want), and are asked to identify the form by clicking (with the mouse) on the correct boxes in the displayed morphological chart. The students get so many points for correct answers depending on the level of difficulty they choose, and at certain amounts they rise to the next level in the Roman cursus honorum. At the end they get their final score and rank.

MARE NOSTRUM:
Students first choose the format, either 1) they are given the grammatical label and the dictionary form (with genitive and gender) of the noun and adjective, and are asked for the Latin form, or 2) they are given the Latin form and are asked to click on the correct parts of the displayed morphological chart. Next they choose the declensions of nouns and adjectives with which they want to work; then they choose the cases, by number, with which to work; and finally they choose the amount of information about the Latin words that they want to be shown. For every right answer they get points, the mumber depending on the level of difficulty that they chose; for every 40 points the program adds another province to the empire by turning it green.

TRANSLAT:
Students select one of the sequenced exercises and then are presented with a series of Latin sentences. For each sentence they may inquire about the dictionary entry, meaning, morphological form, or function of any word in the sentence, before translating the sentence. After students enter their translation, the program evaluates their offering, responding with a simple "Correct!" or with a litany of suggestions and blinking wrong words (the program rigorously rejects any correct English translation not allowed by the book's vocabulary list).

ARTIFEX VERBORUM:
Students select one of the sequenced exercises, and are presented with a series of Latin sentences, and asked to parse each word (i.e. to identify its part of speech and its morphological form when appropriate). Upon completion of the parsing, an English translation of the sentence is automatically displayed. There is no syntax component in this program.

LECTOR: Student select a single item from one of three topic areas (parts of speech, forms, syntax); there are only forty in all. Then the students select those exercises that have the item they selected until they have assembled a set of fifteen sentences (more are not allowed). The program presents the sentences one at a time and the students identify the item by clicking on the appropriate word. The program tells the students whether they are right or wrong with each click. and responds either with the morphology for a wrong answer or with the syntax and dependence, if the answer is correct.

The Jenney version is the "new" Jenney, copyright 1990. All the programs in LATIN SKILLS I and II except TRANSLAT cover both Jenney I and II--in SKILLS I through Jenney II, lesson 8; and in SKILLS II through Jenney II, lesson 19. VERB FACTORY has fifteen sequenced stopping points for verb morphology. CURSUS HONORUM has fifteen sequenced stopping points for verb morphology. MARE NOSTRUM has six sequenced stopping points in Jenney I, but this is transparent to the user who does not select by chapter in Jenney. TRANSLAT has only seventeen exercises for the forty lessons of Jenney I. ARTIFEX VERBO RUM has only nineteen exercises for all the lessons of Jenney I and II. LECTOR has thirty-six exercises for Jenney I and II. The coverage (forty items under three headings) is uneven and somewhat arbitrary; under parts of speech the student will find participle and infinitive and under syntax there are few constructions beyond the most obvious, and many of the more difficult (e.g. ablatives without prepositions) are not covered at all. I tried 'appositives'; there were two cases where the direct case usage itself was classified as the appositive; there were no awareness that the predicate nominative and the predicate accusative are appositives; and in fact one predicate nominative was called the 'object' of essent, although one of the syntactic categories is predicate nominative.

In general this is a superb series of programs set up to cover many text books and most of the basic sequential skills needed for learning to read and write Latin. There are very few technical problems (a few blotches on screen erase where parts were missed, a rare infelicity in the routing of routines), on the whole the programming works well, and the organization of the programs is quite streamlined, allowing smooth flow forward, backward and out. There are always things that one could wish for in any program. Why not combine several of the smaller programs into one coordinated master program? I would have done the syntax somewhat differently: the category of complementary infinitive is over-extended, and nothing is done with objective or subjective infinitives (in one place the infinitive with the passive of doceo is called complementary, though elsewhere an infinitive with the passive of dico is indirect discourse). I would prefer to avoid the pseudo-category of object of a preposition (or if it must be used, then we should use it across the board as in English). Furthennore, I regret the absence of any vocabulary program or composition program to add those dimensions to this battery of instructional aids. Nonetheless, Gerald Culley's programs have made a heroic effort to provide a common basis of Computer Aided Instruction for a wide variety of textbooks and instructional styles that covers many of the basic components of any serious course. I will end with some of the advice that appears early in Culley's manuals: these programs will be most effective when they are used as supplements after the material has been presented and integrated in a systematic classroom program.