The First Swansea Summer School in Ancient Languages
This year the first ever Swansea Summer School in Ancient Languages took place for two weeks, from the 19th – 31st of July 2015. We had more than 50 participants, some from as far as Australia, the US, Canada, and the continent. We offered courses on Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced Latin and Greek, Beginners’ Egyptian, and Medieval Latin.
Talk by Dr Peter Haarer (Oxford University)
Each class had three hours of teaching a day with homework set in between for the following class. In addition to classes, there were extra-curricular activities held for the participants every evening, Wednesday afternoons and the weekend between the two weeks (25th & 26th). We had talks by Dr Peter Haarer (Oxford University), Prof Mark Humphries and Ian Repath (both Swansea University), and Mari Williams. One of the tutors organised a quiz on the Friday, and we had excursions to the Dolaucothi mines, Caerleon and Caerwent, and to the Gower.
Trip to Caerleon and Caerwent
We received excellent feedback from our participants:
‘Very good experience overall. Excellent teaching, teacher very motivated’
‘We were very grateful for a bursary, as we could not have afforded the course otherwise (there are two of us)’
‘Optimum erat et sibi gratias ago’
‘Absolutely brilliant! Loved every minute of the classes – the Beginners’ Egyptian tutor was an inspiration. He really made the language come alive – his enthusiasm is infectious!’
‘Most grateful to Evelien for keeping in close contact, keeping us informed and for all help before and during the course’
‘Very good being in a small group of four…The Advanced Latin tutor is a very gentle tutor who opened my eyes to many possibilities of interpretation and background’
‘the talks were very interesting and the summer school was well organised’
‘I hope you can continue to run it! The bursary made it possible for us to attend’
A captivated Advanced Latin group reading naughty Catullus
Overall the Summer School ran well and because of its success this year we are currently preparing for next year where we plan to run it again with additional classes. To view our website for this year please visit: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/classics/summerschoolinancientlanguages/
For a Storify narrative of the Summer School, see https://storify.com/nimuevelien/first-ever-swansea-summer-school-in-ancient-langua
