At a teaching and learning training day for new lecturers run by the Higher Education Academy’s Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology (26th February 2008, Birkbeck College, London; see PDF poster), is listed a break-out session on ‘Teaching Languages with Inscriptions’.
I have always thought this was a valuable tool, for several reasons: (1) inscriptions tend to use simple grammar and repetitive vocabulary that are easy for beginning students to handle; (2) it’s real ancient text, not invented and unrealistic lingo like so many textbooks offer; (3) exercises involving uppercase letters (in Greek), no word-breaks, can be useful in consolidating students’ knowledge of the basics, *and* (4) working from photographs and real texts will give them a sense of real accomplishment and be a lot of fun.
Anyone have any insight or experiences to share on this?
