Teaching
Latin Around the World :
Germany
Tobias Schliebitz
As I write this , I am thinking of the pupils that , in a few days , I ’ ll begin teaching at my school , the Mataré-Gymnasium Europaschule near Düsseldorf , Germany .
These pupils have all learned English since primary school , and now , entering 7th grade at around 13 years of age , will take Latin as their second foreign language . They could also have chosen French or , in some German grammar schools ,
Spanish .
Taking a second language is compulsory in our grammar schools , which prepare for university education . Pupils at other schools usually don ’ t have to learn a second foreign language and can ’ t take any Latin courses .
In the 2018-19 school year around 7 million pupils attended German primary and secondary education , out of which nearly 600,000 studied Latin . The overall number of Latin students has been decreasing over the last several decades . In the past , students often opted to study Latin because of the Latinum certificate , awarded after five years of successful study of Latin . The Latinum is acknowledged in all federal German states and has been a compulsory requirement for many university courses , including subjects like medicine , law , English , and history . Unfortunately , as more and more universities have dropped this requirement , a very strong incentive for Latin has disappeared .
Today , we Latin teachers try hard to prove that Latin gives important cultural and linguistic insights , and that learning to read and understand Latin texts can be both fun and rewarding .
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