1. Listening and speaking

Listening to and obeying simple commands in Latin will enhance the learner's awareness of language as an abstract entity that may be manipulated to facilitate communication. Use of both Latin as subject, and another, modern language as medium of learning and teaching will facilitate the learner's ability in both languages, thereby fostering the ideal of multilingualism. Attention to the reading aloud of both poetry and prose and the intricacies of sound play, metre and prosody will attune the learner's ears to alternative ways of expressing emotion, a major factor in oratory (public speaking) and the writing of poetry in any language.

Both the exactness and conciseness of fixed Latin expressions and abbreviations and the ubiquity of Latin derivatives in use in modern communication will further equip learners with a flexible means of enhancing their communication skills.

2. Reading and viewing

The corpus of Latin literature comprises a wide spectrum of genres, and within each genre examples of fine writing of a sufficiently simple or intricate nature are available for learners at every level to enjoy. Genres developed by Graeco-Roman authors still dominate most of literature today. Often learners' understanding of nuances of meaning in modern authors, as well as allusions to works by their Graeco-Roman predecessors by these authors, is sharpened and enhanced by recourse to the literary tradition embodied in Latin works, which may be read either in the original language or in translation. Essential to understanding much of Latin literature is a command of Greek and Roman myth, to be read in any suitable vernacular version.

Literature is rooted in society. Fully to understand the significance of issues raised in the texts studied, learners need to do research into the contemporary background of these works. Both the intrinsic interest of this knowledge and its value for informed contrasting with modern society stimulate and offer learners scope for the satisfaction of their intellectual curiosity.

Access to the best works in any literature enhances learners' intellectual experience. Learners' emotional response to timeless issues raised within Latin literature by the authors that they read broadens learners' spectrum of emotional awareness. Issues of life and death, freedom and enslavement, disenfranchisement, tolerance, democracy versus autocracy, gender discrimination, and many other matters central to South African life today are raised by the Latin authors to be read in either the original or in translation, but also within the narrative framework of many Graeco-Roman myths. Sustained thought about these issues within an essentially alien framework allows learners a certain critical distance which enables them both to judge what is wrong within any society and to keep an open mind about what is right and desirable, as well as to find solutions for common problems.

Conscious contrasting of ancient societies as explored through Latin literature and South African society as they experience it today enables learners to develop a tool for judging both modern society and issues addressed in the other literatures they may study. Awareness of the manipulation inherent in rhetoric (e.g. Cicero's speeches) enables learners to sustain a critical distance in assessing any written or spoken communication.

In addition aspects of ancient society (not specifically addressed in the literature that learners may be studying at any particular level), other aspects of ancient Mediterranean civilization such as myth, art and archaeology offer different learners a wide spectrum of cultural enrichment. They gain a new appreciation of the world around them. Similarities with aspects of their own culture heighten awareness of the value of their own culture. Investigation of the timeless issues addressed in the literature they study will facilitate learners' ability to apply this knowledge to their own lives, thereby understanding themselves more deeply.

Awareness of the ubiquity of Roman political influence and the Graeco-Roman cultural inheritance in Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa and the Near East, will enable learners to understand many facets of modern life, including the South African legal system and many aspects of literature and the arts. This includes so-called 'Classical' elements in modern architecture such as similarities between the architecture of churches, mosques, synagogues and Hindu temples. Roman military expansion in the Mediterranean, Europe and North Africa during the last four hundred years B.C.E. profoundly influenced the political map of the ancient world. Its consolidation and the expansion of Roman law and Graeco-Roman culture during the next four hundred years permanently affected these areas, which are seen as major contributors to modern culture.

Awareness of both cultural similarities (the Classical tradition and continuity of Roman influence addressed above) and cultural differences is conducive to bringing learners to a greater understanding of the world around them. Particularly in Africa many cultures are closer to aspects of Greek and Roman society than to the Western world (e.g. marriage customs, views on gender roles in society, family ties, oral composition and the importance of the spoken word, making of artefacts and pottery). Appreciation of these aspects enhances learners' feeling of self-worth.

3. Writing and presenting

One of the major aspects of Latin learning is recourse to written translation. Translation as a multi-skilled science continues to dominate intercultural debate. In the context of Latin, it comprises reading a text with understanding, coming to grips with its underlying meaning, and transforming this meaning into the target language, often in a completely different type of linguistic structure (e.g. Latin participial phrases vs. English or Afrikaans subordinate clauses, Latin Accusative and Infinitive vs. vernacular noun clauses). The concept of 'deep meaning generating different surface structures' in different languages underlies all development of translation skills. Practice in appropriate translation generates an awareness of the subtleties of both the source and target languages, thereby sharpening the learner's awareness of process and system in both.

Understanding what is written in a language different from their own and rendering that understanding idiomatically in another language sharpens learners' awareness of communication beyond the particulars of a single language. Development of critical thinking through attention to exact interpretation of individual words facilitates learners' communication skills in the language of learning or any other modern language.

Learners at every level will research aspects of ancient culture and will be required to write up the results of such research in the vernacular, thereby developing research and writing skills which will remain part of their intellectual equipment for life.

4. Language

Latin has had a profound influence on the languages of Europe, and Latin expressions are current also in African languages. Learners become aware of the ubiquity of Latin in modern communication, and are able to improve their own communication skills through command of this aspect. They will experience the study of Latin as a valuable tool for lifelong enrichment.

More than 65% of common English words, and a good proportion of Afrikaans words are derived from or cognate to Latin. Study of derivatives and also of fixed Latin expressions and abbreviations will enhance learners' active vocabulary in the modern languages and awaken a lifelong curiosity about the origins of words, as well as equipping the learner with a tool for deciphering unfamiliar words in a variety of contexts. To function and progress within the South African multilingual situation learners need a tool with which to extend the vocabulary of those languages which generally serve as the lingua franca in business, government and higher education.

To grasp the working of a highly inflected language like Latin learners need to understand the system and process of communication in their own language(s). Both similarities and contrasts help learners to gain a theoretical insight into the workings of language as an abstract concept, thereby providing them with a flexible tool for achieving a greater range in communication in their own language(s). A speaker from the African language system benefits both by insight into contrasts and similarities in inflection between Latin and the African language system, and by renewed awareness of structural similarities between Latin and its cognates, English and Afrikaans. Whereas word order is of primary importance in conveying meaning in these two languages, morphology and syntax signal meaning in both Latin and the African language system.

Mastery of Latin morphology, accidence and syntax requires the kind of sustained application which is conducive to good study habits, while meticulous attention to applications of morphology and accidence within the Latin syntactical system enhances the learner's ability to think in the abstract and to formulate accurately.

The Latin language acts as a system of communication from the ancient world to today, and as such what is written in ancient texts is worth reading for the sake of the universals embodied in them. Latin language study is therefore always the precursor to wider literary communication. Latin literature is intrinsically worth reading, and Roman culture still influences every aspect of modern life, from the vocabulary of science and medicine to computers and politics, and from legal precedents to the subject matter of many modern films and books.

Lastly, learning of Latin is an intensely pleasurable experience. Among others, the concise nature of the Latin language offers a particular type of enjoyment when learners realise how much can be said in so few words.