The communicative method emphasizes four key elements of language-learning– reading, listening, speaking, and writing– and teaches these by encouraging students to focus on the successful transfer of meaning as opposed to the accurate reproduction of  forms. The communicative method may be used to teach students either to learn to read or to communicate in Latin and/or ancient Greek. If an instructor’s aim is the former, aspects of Greek and Latin grammar are generally explained to students in their native language. If the latter, all instruction is provided in Latin and/or ancient Greek. The latter approach is employed at various Living Latin (and Greek) conventicula and rusticationes.

The communicative method is to be distinguished from the Comprehensible Input theories of Krashen because Krashen’s emphasis on reception excludes the productive aspects of linguistic communication. It more nearly takes its cue from modern language pedagogy and the Direct Method (though practitioners of the communicative method assume a less advanced type of student than do practitioners of the Direct Method).  One advantage of this approach is that it gets students engaging with Latin and Greek immediately and directly and has been shown to boost enrollments. Its de-emphasis of rote memorization, however, can sometimes yield students with a shaky knowledge of Latin and Greek morphology and grammar. 

Addendum from James F. Patterson: A real obstacle to using the communicative method effectively lies in the difficulty for teachers to acquire oral proficiency in Latin. Too often, it seems, teachers attempt the communicative method with elementary or, at best, intermediate proficiency in spoken Latin.

Further Reading

Lloyd and Hunt (2021) provides a recent, book-length treatment on the use of communicative approaches in ancient language pedagogy. Hunt (2018) is an article-length study of the use of communicative approaches in teaching Latin in the United States in specific. Keeline (2019) and Ancona (2022) discuss how to incorporate spoken Latin into the classroom without teaching exclusively in that language. Owens (2016) discusses some challenges to using spoken Latin in the classroom in light of concerns with attempts to make Latin live again.

-Ancona, Ronnie. “Introducing a Bit of Active Latin into Your Current Advanced Latin Classroom: Usus loquendi et audiendi de Terentio Catulloque,” New England Classical Journal, Vol. 49.1 (2022): 55-65.

-Hunt, S. (2018). Latin is Not Dead: The Rise of Communicative Approaches to the Teaching of Latin in the United States. In Forward with Classics: Classical Languages in Schools and Communities, 89-108. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

-Keeline, Tom. (2019) “‘Aut Latine Aut Nihil’? A Middle Way.” The Classical Outlook 94.2: 57–65.

-Lloyd, M. and S. Hunt. (2021). Communicative Approaches for Ancient Languages. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

-Owens, Patrick M. (2016) “Barbarisms at the Gate: An Analysis of Some Perils in Active Latin Pedagogy.” Classical World 109.4: 507-523.

—Talia Boylan