Want to learn Latin? Want to facilitate a class in winter gardening? How about art appreciation? Do you have skills to share or would you like to learn something new?
I’ve started a discussion about starting an online learning site semi-attached to MGL. If you’d like to share some thoughts on it, please post them here.
My original post on MGL:
“I’ve
thought about this ever since deciding to brush up on my Latin and
begin to study Ancient Greek for no other purpose than that I wanted to.
We
are certainly capable of self-learning, and there are a great many
materials out there to assist us. Sometimes, however, some sort of a
commitment to a group class can help the social aspects of the learning
and keep us motivated.
Here are my thoughts on a learning site:
would, however, like to see the commitment taken seriously, some sort
of skills grading system and an organised class plan to try and ensure
some benefit for participants.
could probably set up a couple of other modern language courses if
people are interested, I could do a beginning German or Spanish
competently, and handle Russian up to “educated native” fluency (by the
time I’ve unrusted my brain).
subdomain of mygiftedlife. It would not be limited to MGL members, but
within a learning environment that should be safe.
of classes could include practical skills like winter gardening or
photography, or arts enjoyment, or even some obscure topics.
I’m posting this here as well, because I know that not everyone goes to MGL, and there are people here whom I would be glad to have participate in this.
__________________________
Technorati Tags: 
![[Valid Atom 1.0]](http://literalminded.com/misc/valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
![[Valid RSS]](http://literalminded.com/misc/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
I might contribute to this...
… although my skills are situated in some few specialised areas only…
I used to do Latin in high school, no less than 6 years of it — but I’ve forgotten most of the words. My Latin grammar’s rusty but probably still functional after I’ve given it a good scrub (cases & verb tenses & nominal classes are still relatively clear, in my mind; the various participles aren’t any more). The problem is that I never considered Latin a genuine language, something you could learn, but merely as a set of exercises to be filled out at the exam. Still, I was leafing through my Latin grammar the other day and realised that, while it may be much more complicated than other languages I’m familiar with, I would definitely be capable of revising Latin on my own — or in smallish groups. I would basically need to spend large amounts of time on intensive vocab revision and a solid familiarity with my grammars and textbooks. So yes: I’d be interested in a little support for that. And I’d be interested in something similar for my German, as well: I can understand it well enough, but my active German is definitely in need of a brush-up (though I’ll probably enroll in evening classes this fall for precisely that purpose).
Spanish… Perhaps I could do with a little tourist Spanish. However, I wouldn’t want to go beyond a couple of hundred basic words, some basic (in)transitive sentence patterns coupled with an understanding of adjective-noun concordance.
Greek… Hmm. I never did Ancient Greek, apart from two lessons (and all I remember from that is a) most of the alphabet and b) Daedalos anthropos estin. Diana thèa estin. Hèlios theos estin. Ahem.) So an introduction-style thing that would give me a taste of the language would be fun, I guess.
As for teaching stuff myself, well, there’s basic Dutch and basic Swedish I could do — both as a “let’s give you a taste of a related language” type of thing, or as a serious enterprise. Remedial French would work, too. I could definitely do English for nonnatives, since I’m involved in teaching some of that at higher levels of education. Or some grammar & spelling-related sessions for both natives & nonnatives who think they need that kind of thing. I could also recycle some materials from classes on, well, job interviews & writing letters of application etc. Or a session on how to give / improve presentations, or on how to write a decent commercial text showcasing your company or the products it sells. I could definitely host some sessions on the history of languages, too — in general or focused on English. A
class on non-Latin writing systems would be manageable too, I suppose, though I’d
have to prepare for that.
Let’s see. What about some short sessions where we read some Middle English texts (pre-1450s; think Chaucer) and Old English (pre-1066: Æfric etc)? Or, erm, I could host a couple of informal sessions on reading a chapter in Gothic — reading something in a language that resembles your own but that is quite different is great fun, because it offers all kinds of new perspectives on your own.
I could also host some sessions on, for instance, mediaeval or, say, 17-th Century literature, or Romantic literature, for those who are interested in an introducion to that. That would involve reading and discussing several poems and books, though, so it would be pretty intensive for those who want to subscribe to that.
__________________________I had a childish dream of walking past apple trees in bloom, to a small mountain cemetery. We walked along with angels
— Prolapse, Essence of Cessna