Beginning Classical Languages
Learning classical languages broadens cognitive and cultural experience and builds skills applicable to a wide range of pathways and endeavours. Through their reading, analysis and translation of texts, students of classical languages further develop their literacy in English, through close attention to detail, logic, and critical reasoning. Students develop an understanding of the nature of language, including linguistic and stylistic features, of culture, and of textual analysis. Through such analysis, learning languages strengthens intellectual and analytical capability and enhances creative and critical thinking.
Learning classical languages broadens cognitive and cultural experience and builds skills applicable to a wide range of pathways and endeavours.
Through their reading, analysis and translation of texts, students of classical languages further develop their literacy in English, through close attention to detail, logic, and critical reasoning. Students develop an understanding of the nature of language, including linguistic and stylistic features, of culture, and of textual analysis. Through such analysis, learning languages strengthens intellectual and analytical capability and enhances creative and critical thinking.
Learning languages opens new perspectives for learners, not only in relation to ancient cultures and their languages, but also in terms of their own language and cultural practices. Studies in a classical language extend the learner’s understanding of themselves, their heritage, values, and identity. They have a growing awareness of the wider world, including the diversity of languages and cultures that have continued to be an integral feature of society since ancient times. They enter the cognitive domain of the ancient world and thus expand their own ways of knowing. Students develop intracultural and intercultural capability. They develop understanding of, and respect for, diversity and difference, and openness to different perspectives and experiences.
Students learn to reorganise their thinking to accommodate the structure of another language. Through developing persistence, attention to detail and the habit of careful, reflective reading, they develop cognitive flexibility, and habits and skills useful for problem-solving.
The valuable intellectual, linguistic, creative, and intercultural skills derived from undertaking complex textual analysis are applicable to many fields of endeavour. They develop a fundamental grounding in grammar and linguistics applicable to many areas of further study. Further, learning classical languages also opens pathways to conducting primary research in fields such as Literature, Ancient History and Archaeology.
The Beginning Classical Languages course is written under The LANGUAGES FRAMEWORK 2020: BSSS LANGUAGES Framework
Achievement Standards for LANGUAGES courses can be found within the Framework.
Students learn to reorganise their thinking to accommodate the structure of another language. They develop cognitive flexibility and problem-solving ability, which can be applied when problems and solutions are not evident, as well as when critical thinking and creative approaches are required.
The Individual
Students learn about classical notions of individuality and individual expression. Students explore ways of belonging and being in the classical world and reflect upon their own expression of identity through the target language.
Society and Community
Students learn how classical language communities were organised, and how they expressed that organisation in grammar, vocabulary, and usage. They learn about classical societies through classical texts and consider these in relation to their own.
The Classical World
Students learn about the challenges, problems, and debates of the classical world. They read and interpret opinions in the target language. They explore the different cultural, social, and ethical practices of the classical world, and consider those in relation to their own world.
Diverse Perspectives
Students learn how culture and language are expressed in various genres to communicate, sustain, and challenge thinking, behaviour, and systems. Students examine and demonstrate an awareness of perspectives. They explore, through the target language, a diversity of cultural expression, such as the use of rhetorical and stylistic devices in classical texts.
Independent Study
An Independent Study unit has an important place in senior secondary courses. It is a valuable pedagogical approach that empowers students to make decisions about their own learning. An Independent Study unit can be proposed by an individual student for their own independent study and negotiated with their teacher. The program of learning for an Independent Study unit must meet the unit goals and content descriptions as they appear in the course. Students must have studied at least THREE standard 1.0 units from this course. A student can only study a maximum of one Independent study unit in each course. An Independent Study unit requires the principal’s written approval. Independent study units are only available to individual students in Year 12. Principal approval is also required for a student in Year 12 to enrol concurrently in an Independent unit and the third 1.0 unit in a course of study.
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