On April 6th 2020 Steven Hunt wrote in Ad Familiares about the relative preparedness of Classics for distance-learning in a time of coronavirus (Hunt 2020). He wrote, ‘Classics continues to thrive online, buzzing up and down the wires, zapping through the air, and into countless homes through computer screen, laptop, ipad and smartphone.’ (Hunt 2020). Pointing to over two decades of intentional investment in an online, digital world for Classics and Classics learning in the UK and US, Hunt concludes: ‘So now, with the challenges before us of having to teach remotely using the internet, Latinists are already digital natives: students know how to find the materials, use them efficiently, and learn.’

This Journal published in 2016 an article by Jerome Moran on ‘Tense, Time and Aspect in the Greek Verb’ (Moran, 2016). It rightly pointed to the unsatisfactory nature of the treatment of the concept of ‘verbal aspect’ in available grammars and language courses, but did not sufficiently, I think, throw light on the issue for practising teachers and their students, nor did it satisfactorily clarify the intellectual issue posed. And yet this concept, which is not difficult to understand, is all-embracing and lies at the heart of the meaning of verbs in the classical language so that it is important to understand the distinctions it provides within the scope of the Greek verb.

This piece originated as an article in In Medias Res on 29 May 2020 and has been updated for the Journal of Classics Teaching. The author would like to acknowledge the helpful feedback from the editors at In Medias Res and The Journal of Classics Teaching on earlier drafts of this essay. Their suggestions helped produce a superior piece.

This article records its author's travels to sites in Britain that either provide settings for or are relevant to the stories of the Cambridge Latin Course. A version of this article was delivered as an oral presentation, entitled ‘In the footsteps of Quintus Caecilius: visiting Roman Britain with the Cambridge Latin Course’, at the American Classical League Centennial Institute in New York in June 2019. The article provides an overview of the sites, attempts to situate them in the geography and history of Roman Britain, and considers how such knowledge might be of benefit to teachers and learners.

In addition to the ‘Key words’ at the head of the article that are provided for online searches, there are a number of other terms that may be regarded as key words in Theory, i.e. terms that tend to recur in works of Theory, works about Theory, and works that employ Theory, terms by which the presence of Theory may be recognised. Many of these are French (or German) words that an English rendering may not fully explicate. Also, they cannot be fully understood outside the context in which they are used, which is a necessary limitation on books about Theory, necessary though these are for beginners. (Wittgenstein famously said that one should not ask for the meaning of a term but look for the use.)

In June 2019 the Classics for All Hubs in the North of England (Blackpool, Liverpool, Durham/North-East England and Manchester/Leeds) met together in Leeds and agreed to combine our forces, rebranding ourselves as Classics for All North. The intention was to create a stronger presence in the North for schools and teachers of classical subjects and to share events and planning. We now have a combined Classics for All North website (https://classicsforallnorth.org.uk/) and social media presence (Twitter handle @ClassicsNorth, Instagram @CfANorth), we produce a combined quarterly newsletter and, where practical, share events and planning. It also means that schools that fall between our hubs or outside our metropolitan centres can feel more included. As we have set up our hubs and got to know teachers, a common difficulty has been raised: a feeling that so much that happens in the Classics world happens in London and the South. We are trying hard to change that. As individual hubs it can be difficult to make an impact. Individual numbers of schools in one area may be too small to run a Teach Meet event, but by combining them and running them across the whole region, we are able to accomplish more and our local schools are noticing more what we have to offer. Of course, our individual hubs are still busy in their own areas, recruiting new schools and training teachers.

The Warwick Classics Network (WCN) was created in July 2018 with funding from the Warwick Widening Participation Development Fund and the Warwick Impact Fund. Further funding from Widening Participation (WP) and the charity Classics for All secured the continuation of the position of Research Fellow in Outreach and Impact for the Dept. of Classics and Ancient History, a role given to Dr Paul Grigsby; WP funding was also used to cover the expenses of events such as our 2nd July 2018 WCN Launch event and the 2019 Warwick Ancient Drama Festival. For the period April 2019-April 2020 the WCN received further funding from WP, Classics for All, and the A. G. Leventis Foundation, and this report will detail the activities that this funding supported.

This article began as a blog post with the title ‘Grammar-Translation: Not Really A Method…’ (Piantaggini, 2020). Of course, that choice of title was intended to hook the reader rather than actually make such a claim. Without a doubt, Grammar-translation (GT) is a language teaching method recognised for its historical significance (Musumeci, 1997), its role amongst other emerging language teaching methods (Shrum & Glisan, 2005), as well as its shortcomings (Richards & Rodgers, 2014). This article investigates the method, and its effect on teachers and students.

Ancient Herstories aims to tell the stories of women from the ancient world: the good, the bad and the ugly. It is a blog developed by Maria Haley and Elinor Cosgrave, who became frustrated at the male-centred history modules they had encountered while teaching.