Description: In this article, experienced Latin and Ancient Languages tutor, Chloe, shares her tips on how students can revise for these particular exams.
After studying Latin for nine years, Ancient Greek for four, and French for six, I have a lot of experience with learning ancient languages.
This is also very much transferable to learning modern languages.
Below, I will outline some of the key revision techniques I have found most useful.
This will be in terms of effective language acquisition and how engaging they are.
Flashcards
Flashcards are a very common resource for revising in all disciplines, and ancient languages are no exception.
These can be created physically, or online, and for this, there are plenty of existing resources for both vocabulary lists and charts of noun and verb endings.
Language students may also find it useful to place these flashcards, or even post-it notes, in familiar places, to remind themselves of particular
concepts at random moments throughout their day.
I’ve had an old language tutor recommend keeping flashcards in your pocket or bag.
Any time you have a spare couple of minutes, you can glance at the flashcards and sneak a little linguistic reminder in.
I’ve also known other students to plaster flashcards around their houses. Mainly, next to the bathroom mirror, on the fridge, and on doorways.
Every time they passed by it, they would pause and familiarise themselves with whatever was on the flashcard.
Oral Skills
Oral skills are generally underutilised in ancient language pedagogy.
Although it is somewhat understandable why (“there’s no need to speak a language that hasn’t been spoken in thousands of years”), speaking the language is an integral part of understanding it.
Whether it be reading out entire passages of text, or chanting verb endings on repeat, the process of speaking the concepts aloud definitely helps to solidify them.
On the topic of repetition, when I did my Latin GCSE, I also used to write out vocabulary and verb/noun charts by hand repetitively.
This can be time-consuming. Therefore, a method I employed more regularly at university was writing revision notes by hand, which involved copying out my typed lesson notes more neatly and in greater depth.
This may be tedious to some, but I enjoyed the process of essentially repeating the lesson by writing it out again, with a resulting set of notes that were tidy and in one place.
Online Resources
For those who prefer online resources, there are plenty of websites which offer a variety of ‘test yourself’ exercises.
For example, tests which randomise verb conjugations and allow you to parse them.
This is particularly helpful to consolidate your grammatical recognition skills when you feel that you have already memorised your noun and verb endings.
Unseen Texts
Next, I strongly encourage practising reading unseen texts and, as mentioned, reading them aloud.
This is what all the revision is leading up to, ultimately: being able to read the language fluently.
Seeing how the grammatical concepts work in practice, and successfully translating and understanding a piece of text in the original language, are rewards in and of themselves.
From my experience, this also works for modern language revision.
I took my French GCSE when I was in Secondary School and regretted not keeping it up.
Instead, I took an extracurricular course while at Cambridge in 2021-22 and used many of the same techniques that had helped me with my ancient languages.
I particularly found a lot of the techniques which involved repetition helpful, which in turn helped the fluency of my spoken French since I had this vocabulary, phrase or grammatical construction memorised.
Final Note
Overall, the best piece of advice I received about language learning was from my Ancient Greek tutor during my undergraduate, who recommended revising “a little and often”.
Glancing at a different grammatical concept each day, even if for five to ten minutes, keeps it fresh in the mind and helps build up familiarity with the language.
It’s certainly much more useful – and healthier – than the stereotypical last-minute revision cram the night before the exam!
By tutor Chloe. Contact Us