Speaking to Read, Reading to Learn (and Listening is Critical Too!) This year the question may well be "Why speak Latin?" For years I have been dissatisfied with the lack of true acquisition and building of a mental representation of Latin in my students. While I love the Cambridge Latin Course and thoroughly understand its reading philosophy (and believe I teach it well), it still isn't enough to develop an internalization of the language because there just isn't enough "comprehensible input." For many years I have personally attended week long immersion programs that utilize many of the techniques I will be using in class to full effect this year.
To read more about the desire of many Latin teachers to move to a comprehensible input model of teaching Latin, please read this wonderful article by my friend and mentor Justin Slocum Bailey entitled "Teaching Latin to Humans."