Step 4: Identify Thought Processes
Usually I figure out my client’s way of thinking just by asking them what problem’s they’re having with the class. The items they identify and, more importantly how they bring them up, clue me in to how they operate. For instance, if they say “Delensions are stupid. There’s no point to them!” I can tell that they are impatient, and that they want everything they learn to fit into a rational system.
Step 5: Set an agenda
In this example, I would suggest we talk about what declensions are, how many there are (knowing that there are only 5 they will ever need to know sometimes reassures them), and why Latin has them.
Step 6: Address the Task
The Latin textbook doesn’t explain the purpose of declensions very well, so usually I would point out first that declensions exist to help us, the people learning Latin as a foreign language. The Romans didn’t think of their language in this way. Instead, translators came up with this concept to make things easier. This might annoy my hypothetical client who wants everything to fit right and make sense, but then I would explain that that is precisely what declensions do. They let us categorize nouns so that we can know something about them before we even encounter them in a Latin reading. Usually by now the client would be more receptive, and then we could look at what the declensions are, and come up with strategies to memorize them.
Step 7: Summarize the Content
For this, I simply have the client explain to me what they now know. for instance, I would have my client explain what a declension is and what the different cases signify (since these usually go together)
Step 8: Summarize the Process
In this case, the client and I would have come up with ways to remember the specific case endings in whatever declension(s) we were studying, so I would have her tell me what strategies she will use for the future.
