Usus adversus doctrinam? Grammatica in schola alterius linguae. Grammatica latine tradita

Abstract

The main objective of most Latin syllabi and curricula has so far to provide the student with high grammatical and syntactic knowledge, that is, to attend more to the form than to the use of the language. To these purely grammatical objectives have been added in recent times, as we will see, new objectives that focus on the natural skills of the language in terms of understanding and expression, without omitting the formal aspects of the language. The challenge of the current Latin teachers is in the correct and appropriate distribution of time and tasks for both purposes, form and use, and this is the issue that this article aims at: after taking the example of the ancients and what appears to be an outline of Varro`s vision of language learning, we will first explain which are the knowledges gained from both form and use; later, it will be shown how form and use appear already combined in some syllabi; finally, an example of how to attend form and use in the same task will be offered.