FFL- Help?

[Jessica Louise]

I am totally confused by the FFL flashcards and Latin Recitation. Can someone tell me where I can find instructions or a video that will clear up my confusion. LC was so much simpler. TIA!

[howiecram]

Can you tell us what lesson you are on? I have seen a lot of confusion on "all the words" on the first few lesson flashcards. Your child does in fact need to memorize all those "words" on the flashcard. You may consider holding of on using the MP flashcards until you get to the lesson where you learn about principal parts. That learning begins in lesson 4 (so the amo - are) card will make more sense then. The do, dare, dedi, dates is explained in lesson 7. I've had my son making is own flaschards. Once we get to the point where he knows and understands the principal parts, I plan to have him go back and add those. We had to make flashcards becasuse my daughter is finishing up Second Form and is still using the FFL cards. I didn't think about each child perhaps needing their own card. I didn't want to place another order, so homemade flashcards it is! In your case you could cover up the "extra" parts you don't know or simply have your child memorize everything on the front. Let your child know he/she will learn what the other parts on the card mean in a few weeks. Then, when the lesson comes up, the parts are already memorized. Lesson 4 is a total review, adding in the infinitive (the -are) part of the card.

The recitation - there are Latin recitation cards you can use. The little booklet tells you which cards you use. Once my child knew them, I mixed them in with the vocabulary so I didn't have to do the drilling myself all the time. (just the new parts). But, don't confuse the Latin recitation with the GRAMMAR recitation. The latin recitation are the forms learned - (conjugate amo, or voco), give the personal endings, present tense endings, etc. The GRAMMAR recitation is at the back of the Teacher Answer Key booklet. It begins after all the workbook page answers. (around page 217) - the questions are also in the student workbook (it begins on page 217 the questions and answers are there, so the child could study them). At the start of a new lesson, I don't except the child to the know the answer -it usually takes awhile to memorize the answer (I do make sure we have "taught" the concept though). I also am having my child make flashcards for these.

So, there are several components for teaching, but once you organize yourself, it does move smoothly. I will admit that my oldest did the class almost entirely independently and she went on to Second Form just fine. She watched the video 1 day and then, just worked through the workbook as scheduled in the lesson plans. She did have the Latin grammar recitation flashcards and vocabulary flashcards that we broke up into plastic bags and she did a bag everyday. + an "everyday" bag. About once per week I drilled the grammar questions and did some oral vocabulary "quizzes" to check in to see her progress. (we did do the vocabulary one week ahead)

Now, for my current child that would not work, so I am spending everyday on latin with him. Here is a list of things that I do with him:
1)teach the lesson
2)grammar questions (right now we do all the questions, but as the list gets longer, I will break it up over several days)
3)vocabulary drill (again, break it up over several days)
4)grammar recitation (flashcards)
5) oral drill - there is one every lesson. If you don't see one listed, it is at the back of the teacher's guide. I break this up over two days, more towards the end of the week.

The day I teach the lesson, I find an exercise that practices, in insolation, what has been taught. We don't do a lot of other oral work or review. The second day we do more oral work + a review of the concept. Then we find the assigned pages and I look over it with him to see if he needs help or can do it on his own. We are taking more like 6-7 days per lesson, because it is taking us 5 days to complete the lesson and all the oral work. Day 6 or so is the quiz. This meant that when my daughter did this, we did not finish the last unit. It worked out just fine to begin the next year with that last unit and then just move right into Second Form. Again, she didn't finish it. I plan to take 2 years to finish Third Form at this point. The workload is no considerably larger.

Anyway, this is how we have done it. Others will share their experiences.

It is true that LC took little to no preparation and FFL does take a little more front end "prep. But, follow the lesson plans and just decide how you will break up the teaching and the oral work.

[Mom2mthj]

Good morning!

As Christine said, FFL is more work than LC. If you count my own time through FFL, I am currently finishing up my fifth time through the book. There were a lot of parts to it, but many more extras have been added to “help” in various ways that are nice, but not necessary. I own the vocabulary flash cards and the grammar recitation cards are objectively useful, but not as much for FFL as further down the road when you get overwhelmed as the parent trying to run the recitation on material you don’t know. For now, I would tuck them away in a safe place until you get your groove. Like Christine, my oldest was quite self-sufficient early on, but even she (no a classics minor in college) had trouble with teach yourself second form so I strongly recommend staying involved.

Here’s what we do…
1. Watch the video for the lesson (we’ve stuck with the old ones) - either after the previous quiz or on the first morning of the lesson. Watch it with your student if you are new to Latin yourself. I could recite them at this point, so I only sort of watch from the kitchen.
2. Open the teacher’s manual to the current lesson - on the left side you will find a list of recitation items (my videos have a recitation so I don’t do it the day of the video) and a list of grammar questions to be reviewed. The recitation items correspond to the recently released recitation flash cards, but early on I flipped around in the book to find the answers (a pain) and at some point I made a file with the answers all in one spot (before I realized there were grammar charts in the appendix). If the list is short, we do it all a couple days a week. The grammar questions are in the back of the student workbook and in the middle of the answer key between the workbook answers and the quiz answers. For those, I grab the student book and review through the list over the week. I circle ones that are problematic.
3. Complete workbook assignment. I have a younger student and I am not as concerned about finishing the text in a school year, so my son typically completes a page per day in the workbook. I make him create his own vocabulary flash cards. He seems to like using sharpies and colored flash cards and it works as one time of copying out the vocabulary.

Good luck. You will figure it all out. Just don’t get overwhelmed with all the “helps” MP offers. You will probably find them useful later on, but for now try sticking to the basics and see how it goes.

[tanya]

Hello.

Christine has given you great information, but if you continue to have questions as you go, feel free to reach out. We are happy to help!

Thanks, Christine!

Tanya

[tanya]

Ha! Thanks to Dorinda also! (You and I must have been typing at the same time.)

[smithamykat]

We rarely used FFL flashcards and never Latin Recitation. My two oldest are in Third Form and my third kid is in First Form. Those resources are helpful but not essential. What IS essential is consistent review of previously taught FORMS (conjugations in all different tenses/moods, declensions of nouns/pronouns/adjectives, etc), VOCABULARY, and GRAMMAR questions. Each lesson has a little section on the upper left-hand margin of the Teacher Guide (the book that also contains the student text inset). This section is called Recitation. It shows suggestions for what to review. If you run through a recitation of those forms, vocabulary, and grammar questions over the course of the week (or however long you take on that lesson), you will be giving plenty of review. The forms are in the appendix of the the Teacher Guide. The vocabulary and grammar questions are at the end of the student workbook and also the Teacher Key (the book with answers to the student workbook). I find it easier to flip through my two teacher books to lead recitation than to have another book and a stack of flashcards. But however you accomplish it, that Recitation for each lesson is the golden key to mastery