Please purchase ONE registration for ALL of the Schola Alta (7th-12th grade) Latin II students in your family.

Please Note: This NON-REFUNDABLE registration does not guarantee enrollment in a licensed Aquinas Learning Center. Please contact your director to apply and pay center tuition for a seat in her classroom.

This registration provides one family with unlimited access to our Cycle 1 Latin II Course for one school year, in addition to continuing education for primary educators, a private forum for member families, and exclusive discounts for the purchase of partner materials.

In Schola Alta Latin II at Aquinas Learning, students will continue their study of Latin through an immersive language learning experience as adapted to a homeschool co-op/hybrid homeschool. True Latin Immersion can be traced back to the early medieval period, and it continues up to the present day. This method of teaching would today be labeled Comprehensible Input by those who study Second Language Acquisition, but there is nothing trendy or modern about it, and it is eminently Catholic. The return to this traditional method is today called Living Latin, and its most well-known proponent, Father Reginald Foster, Latin Secretary to several popes, formed many disciples who now teach Latin in religious and secular institutions across the United States and Europe.

The aim of our Latin Program is to reconnect students to their Catholic Latin heritage, including the preparation of boys for altar serving and perhaps one day for the priesthood. Ideally, students will discover the power of praying in Latin, the joy of singing and understanding chants and hymns in Latin, the satisfaction of being able to follow the Traditional Latin Mass, and the thrill of encountering the writings of our Church in the language in which they were written. They will be able to understand Latin, both written and spoken, and will also be able to speak and eventually even write in Latin. Knowledge of Latin will open to them all of Catholic Tradition.

The textbook for Latin II is a continuation of Volume 1 of Latin by the Natural Method by Father William Most - Priest, Professor, and Theologian. Latin by the Natural Method (LNM), in three volumes, fell into obscurity in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council but has in recent years been rediscovered by Catholic teachers of Latin. Father Most was himself an accomplished Latinist, who wrote lengthy theological treatises in Latin. We can view him and the texts that he wrote as part of a continuous tradition of Living Latin that was renewed by Father Reginald Foster and his many disciples.

The key to Living Latin is quasi-daily listening to and reading comprehensible Latin. At the Center, mentors will have the option, as feasible, to first engage the students in structured Latin conversation (colloquium) before introducing the grammar and vocabulary that they will encounter in the week’s reading (lēctiō). Mentors will introduce the LNM reading, by reading it aloud and providing students with an in-class treatment of each new lēctiō before the students embark on that week’s Home Study. Upon the next class meeting, the mentor assesses the students’ grasp of the current lēctiō (comprehension/vocabulary/grammar) by written and/or oral means before moving on to the next lēctiō. In addition, students will also periodically recite prayers and hymns that they have learned (recitātiō) and rehearse/present a pre-written dialogue/colloquium with each other (dialogus), in which they will practice pronunciation, accentuation, emphasis, gesture, and expression.

At home, students will read and reread the week’s reading and study the related lectio content. Latin reading practice should follow a progression over the course of the week from 1) listening to it read aloud & reading along silently while listening to it read aloud, to 2) reading along out loud while listening to it read aloud, to 3) reading out loud without any audio, to 4) reading silently without any audio. Students will also copy and learn LNM vocabulary (scriptiō), copy grammar paradigms to learn conjugations and declensions (scriptiō), work on learning their prayers/hymns for recitation (recitātiō), practice their dialogues for presenting (idialogus), and either watch or listen to recordings of spoken Latin (audītiō).

Please note: This registration does not include the cost of materials or the cost of tuition paid to an independently owned and operated center using the AL curriculum.

Shortly after completing registration, member families will receive a getting started guide with instructions for ordering materials with members-only discount codes and access to the Latin II course site. Full course materials will be uploaded and launched a couple of months before the start of the school year.