The following files are available to download to assist with your course.
- Course Overview
- Course Content
- E-Tutor
- Materials
- Assessment and certification
- Duration/End Date
The Book III Independent Learner Course is a 40-week tutored email correspondence course.
Please use the menu on the left (or menu below if you are on a tablet or mobile phone) for more details, or read on below for an overview.
The Book III Course is suitable for those who have completed the Book II Course and who are perhaps thinking of moving on to reading original Latin literature or preparing for GCSE Latin. To find out whether the content of this course is appropriate for you, please visit the course content page and for details of the linguistic knowledge necessary for this course, please view the Book I course content and the Book II course content.
Book III is divided into 8 Stages, or chapters, and each Stage normally takes about 6 hours to complete. The whole course therefore takes roughly 50 hours. You may wish to study every day or just once a week - the pace at which you go is entirely up to you! Your e-tutor will be available for up to 40 weeks and will be happy to receive work from you, by email or post, at whatever pace you decide to go.
When you enrol for the course, you will receive a set of materials including anIndependent Learner's Guide, which divides the course into 35 sessions, each designed to last about 1.5 hours. For almost every session, some work is identified for you to submit to your e-tutor and he or she will aim to assess that work and return it to you, with advice for improvement, usually within 48 hours. Assessment and certification are available at three points during this course.
CSCP is a not-for-profit department of the University of Cambridge, and therefore we keep the costs of our courses as low as we can, to allow as many people as possible to gain access to the study of Latin and the Roman world.
The Cambridge Latin Course is set firmly in the cultural context of the Roman world in the first century AD. Book III returns Roman Britain to look at life in Bath and Chester, investigating religion and the Roman army in the process.
The main language features of Book III include
- Perfect passive and active participles
- Formation of adjectives and adverbs
- Neuter nouns
- Imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive
- Indirect questions
- Purpose clauses
- Indirect commands
- Result clauses
- Gerundives
- Ablative case
- Expressions of time
- Prepositions
The main civilisation topics include
- Aquae Sulis and its baths
- Magic and curses
- Roman religion: sacrifice, divination, state religion and romanisation
- Travel and communication
- The legionary soldier: recruitment, training, work, pay, promotion and auxiliaries
- Agricola, governor of Britain
- The legionary fortress
- Interpreting the evidence: literary, archaeological and inscriptional
Standard
Your e-tutor will always be an experienced, enthusiastic Latin teacher, who knows the course well and is familiar with ways to help you with any issues which may arise during the course. He or she is unlikely to be involved in this project for the money! Rather your tutor will want to help you get the most out of your study of Latin and the Roman world.
When you enrol for the course, we will send you, by post, amongst other materials, an Independent Learner's Guide, detailing what work to undertake in each session. For examination courses (Eduqas, AS/A Level), sessions are held online. Almost all sessions have a designated assignment to send to your e-tutor. Your e-tutor will mark your work and return it to you, with ideas on how you might improve and, like any tutor, will try to explain an idea or concept to you if you are not certain about it. You do not have to send work if you do not wish to do so, of course, but we strongly recommend that you do, as this will both inform you of how you are progressing, and help your e-tutor to assist you in your learning.
Most of our e-tutors tell us that they would like to be contacted by their students more frequently, rather than less, and no limit is placed on the amount of times you may contact your e-tutor.
All e-tutors have completed a Criminal Records Bureau disclosure and are competent in sending, receiving and marking work electronically. Should you have any concerns about your e-tutor at any stage, you can contact our office at any time.
Book III ~ Materials
The basis of this course is the UK edition of Book III of the Cambridge Latin Course.
Your study of the textbook is supported by an 81 page Book III Independent Learning Manual and a Book III Independent Learning Manual Answer Book, which are specifically designed for students without direct access to a Latin teacher. You will also receive a Book III Independent Learner's Guide, detailing what you should aim to study in each session and highlighting the work to be sent to your e-tutor.
When you enrol, we will send you all the necessary print materials except the textbook. This is because we encourage you to view the textbook before you enrol for the course, so that you have an opportunity to see the textbook's approach and be sure that you wish to follow a tutored course through it. You will find the textbook in most major bookshops, or you can order it directly from Amazon.co.uk (not Amazon.com) or The Hellenic Bookservice. If you are a student outside the UK, please be sure to purchase the UK fourth edition of the Book (ISBN 978-0-521-79794-8).
*** Only students enrolled on the course and the course tutors can access downloadable course materials ***
*** Only students enrolled on the course and the course tutors can access downloadable course materials ***
Book III ~ Assessment & certification
The Book III Course is divided into 8 Stages, or chapters, representing Stages 21 to 28 of the Cambridge Latin Course. Certificated assessment from the University of Cambridge is available at the end of Stages 22, 26 and 28.
The assessments at the end of Stages 22 and 26 are based entirely on your understanding of the Latin language – you must translate a passage of Latin which is similar in difficulty to that of the stories in those Stages. The assessment at the end of Stage 28 evaluates your understanding of both the language and the civilisation elements of the course. You answer comprehension questions based on a passage of Latin similar in difficulty to that of the stories in Stage 28 and you are also tested on the cultural topics covered in the course.
The assessment test is emailed or posted to you by your e-tutor and we trust you to complete it in exam conditions. Your e-tutor will mark your script and we will send you a certificate if you pass.
The Cambridge Latin Course leads to GCSE qualification and by the end of the Book III Course you will be about three quarters of the way to GCSE level. For further details of progression to GCSE, please see the Qualifications area of the website.