Abstract:

In Portugal, for the last century, Classical studies have been associated to hard, boring, old-fashioned and sometimes even useless subjects. It is not easy to understand this phenomenon not only because Portuguese language is a romance one but also because it is a strange way to deal with the languages and cultures that, in the western world, are the most ancient and productive ones.
In consequence of this incomprehensible way of dealing with these subjects and also of the way of being of the new generations (they mostly prefer modern things as Playstations and also soft work), children and teenagers show no interest in learning it although they never tried it for their own… So, the study of subjects like Latin, Ancient Greek, Roman or Greek Cultures has almost disappeared. It is not easy to find high schools where those few illuminated who still want to learn it have the chance to achieve that goal. Even universities don’t offer enough subjects especially to those who want to become language’s teachers.
So, as a Latin teacher, as a Classical lover and as a mother, I realized that we must, in behalf of the youngest generations, try to increase their interest on those subjects. In the last year I started to organize my Latin classes on Moodle (b-learning) and in the last semester I started to use rooms where there are computers. At my Faculty (and perhaps in Portugal) it was a novelty. The students at first were astonished, they used to joke saying: “It is funny to use computers in this new teaching and learning approach in Latin classes!” The truth is that this class is the most interested I had since I started working fourteen years ago…
I have just given the first steps, I still have a lot to learn and to ameliorate concerning to this method, which I know is already used in some countries - but, even so, I thought that sharing my experience could be interesting…

Keywords:

Latin, Classical studies, Moodle, b-learning, teaching.