How can teachers use Legentibus

Latin teachers use Legentibus individually, to enjoy Latin literature, to polish a specific skill, or as a resource that helps them curate their Latin curriculum. 

Legentibus is designed for students to learn, teachers to educate, and both to advance the modern Latin classroom.

Here's how.

How to use Legentibus content in the classroom

Most teachers wonder about the ways they can use the app in the classroom. Here's a short overview of the type of available content, with ideas about how to use it with students. We took into consideration three possibilities:

1. You use Legentibus only outside the classroom, but use the content to prepare for the class.
2. There is a class subscription and students may use the app on their devices (tablets) anytime, including the classroom.
3. You can use Legentibus in the classroom even if students can't use devices, e.g., project it on a screen or use a loudspeaker.

 Legentibus is divided into two main types of material:

• read-alongs with additional resources (glossaries, commentaries)
• audiobooks

Read-alongs are ebooks with synchronized Latin audio: the text higlights the text narrated in the recording.

Depending on the level and type of content, additional resources can be illustrations, notes on language, history and culture, comments, source texts, translations, vocabulary and more.

Reading materials you'll find in the app are:

• Original Legentibus stories (novice to low-intermediate level)
• Textbooks and readers (beginner to different intermediate levels)
• Original literature (advanced level)

All texts are with macrons. They're carefully curated, with book descriptions, reading and learning guidelines, and the aforementioned help.

We add books on a monthly or even weekly basis, depending on the complexity of the material. 

Our strongest support for the Latin school curriculum is Legentibus'  original stories. They're written with the relevant historical and cultural context in mind, using attested classical language that prepares students for classical literature.

Latin programs can influence the child’s linguistic competencies, reading habits, critical and historical thinking, ability to articulate ideas about the world, research interests and interest in humanistic ideas and values. Use these facts to shape your choices when it comes to using the content in the app.

You can use Legentibus to:

• Read stories and literature in the classroom, and/or inspire reading outside of it.
• Encourage extensive reading with reading logs, diaries, and reviews of the stories, quotations, entire books, or their parts.
• Design tests that require students to understand a word, a phrase, a story subject or a work in the relevant context.
• Stimulate students to select passages they like the most, discuss them, or write about them.
• Practice listening comprehension.

Use content for classroom discussion on topics you either read and share with students, you read with them, or they read on their own.

Topics to discuss can include mythology, historical figures and events, literature, genres, or the connection of Latin to their own or Romance languages. Encourage students to choose unit themes and vote on different subjects, stories, and books.

Students can also select  words, phrases and constructions from additional resources to research them further, e.g., by looking up etymologies, or they can illustrate them with drawings. 

Maybe they'll enjoy learning a certain class of words, so they can create word games and quizzes on their own or in teams. Listening only (parts, phrases, passages..) can be part of it.

You can use Legentibus to design your own Latin curriculum, because it's not limited to one textbook or reader. But you can also include students and their interests in the process.

If you need to combine classes and teach different levels in the same class period, you can make it extensive for part of the class and intensive for the other while using the same material.

How to use the app in a non-tech school

Most teachers are expected to prepare students for reading Caesar, Cicero and classical literature. In the age of digital technology, there should be more options available that allow you to do that. 

Legentibus can be used on iOS and Android devices (smartphones and tablets/iPads). One subscription works on up to five different devices that use the same operating system (i.e., either iOS or Android). It can be used offiline, but you need to be online to download the app, subscribe and download books. 

It's important you have these options in mind when thinking about individual or classroom subscriptions.

Many schools today encourage students' digital literacy by including tablets in the classroom. If students can't use them, teachers usually can.

Most teachers connect their iPad or iPhone, i.e. smartphone or tablet, to a larger screen or projector in class, and then read and discuss the story on Legentibus with their students, ask questions etc. 

Some teachers have the students review and perhaps prepare another story or text for the next lesson. Others have students pick a story or piece of text, and rewrite, add, summarize, or even present it in class or in a small group.

To summarize, if your school doesn't allow students to use smartphones, or there are other restrictions, consider:

• using tablets
• projecting from your phone or iPad
• using a loudspeaker to play audio content
• using the app's content to prepare lessons
• encouraging the school administration to support children using the app inside or outside the classroom

Students are exposed to reading on devices no matter the options in the school. Schools can help students transform incidental reading on devices into intentional reading. 

In the end, Latin programs and schools may differ, but teaching goals remain the same: confident and skillful students that learn more than words and grammar. 

These are the times of the greatest reading revolution since Gutenberg, and entire libraries are available at the tap of the screen. Make sure your students learn to use technology efficiently and use content relevant for their future.

support@latinitium.com