Munster teacher's lessons show Latin isn't a 'dead language'

MUNSTER, Ind. (AP) - If you really want to enhance your vocabulary, take Latin.

Latin is everywhere - in our government buildings, in medical and legal language, and it is the foundation for Romance languages such French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

Heidi Speckhard fell in love with the language as a teenager taking classes at Valparaiso High School, graduating in 1988. She majored in Latin at Valparaiso University and later taught Latin at private schools in Cleveland and St. Louis.

Today, the mother of six and wife of the Rev. Peter Speckhard at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, in Munster, is passing on her love for the language by teaching Latin at St. Paul's Lutheran School. The school has an enrollment of 275 youngsters in kindergarten through eighth grade.

In addition to the language, Speckhard said students also learn about how the Romans lived - their housing, architecture, food, philosophy, religion, literature, government and history.

"If you know Latin, you can figure out the English words," she told students.

"It's particularly nice for elementary-aged children to have a foundation in Latin. All of our students go to different high schools, and they are not pigeonholed into one language and they the foundation through Latin. It's a very logical and straightforward language. I can't even imagine how to learn English from another language, because English has so many exceptions to the rules," she told The Times (http://bit.ly/1BcXyta ).

She helps students memorize the vocabulary by using flash cards, singing songs and using other memory techniques. Students also conjugate verbs and identify whether the word is a verb, noun or adjective. St. Paul's first-graders also use a textbook called "Song School Latin," where everything has a song with it to help learn the Latin. When conjugating verbs, Speckhard has her students recite them to the tune of the "Mexican Hat Dance."

Fourth-grader Piper Swope said she finds Latin "interesting and fun" and it's nice to know how English came about. Piper said she thinks about the Latin when she's in her religion class.

St. Paul's Lutheran School Principal Barbara Mertens, in her third year, said the school initially looked at offering Spanish to students, but as they began looking at the goal of language development for students - and with an expert teacher on hand in the pastor's wife - decided to move forward with Latin.

"Latin gives us an opportunity to make a cross-curricular connection to other subject areas like English and language arts," she said. "As we did more research into Latin and that it's the root of so many other languages and focuses on language development, we thought it would be a good idea.

"The parents and students have responded very well. Some were excited when we talked about offering Spanish but now like the Latin. She has made a good connection with students and she informs parents about what their children are doing. She focuses on the vocabulary and making a connection to other subjects. The students enjoy it even more than we anticipated and the parents love it because they see the connection to other languages," Mertens said.

St. Paul's admissions counselor, Debbie Minyard, said, "Some people questioned the decision to add Latin, a 'dead' language. However, there are several reasons Latin classes are beneficial: 60 percent of all English words are derived from Latin and 80 percent of the vocabulary from Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian) derive from Latin.

"Latin provides a good understanding of modern sciences, law, politics, logic and theology. A seven-year study of SAT verbal, analytic, and problem-solving scores showed that students who studied Latin outperformed those who studied other languages. It has also been shown that Latin students outperform others on the vocabulary section of the ISTEP tests."

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Information from: The Times, http://www.thetimesonline.com