When is "It's boring!" a legitimate complaint?
I've been struggling along teaching Latin for a couple of years now, using Latina Christiana, and have never gotten beyond the 15th lesson. There are things that I like about it: the pronunciation (Christian rather than classical), the content, the tie-in with Roman history, the prayers and songs we learn, the fact that it's written for homeschooling moms who have no training in Latin, so why have we not made better progress than 15 lessons?

Recently I came across this post at Matt's blog where he mentions the Latin curriculum he is using with his own children.

This is how the publisher describes the curriculum:

Lingua Latina provides Latin that students read and understand immediately. Every sentence is intelligible per se because the meaning and function of all new word forms is made clear by the context, by illustrations or by marginal notes provided throughout this carefully graded text. Part I forms an eventful and entertaining narrative, which also serves as an introduction to the life and culture of ancient Rome.

This DIRECT METHOD, based on understanding from the context, has proved efficient both for self-tuition and classroom teaching. Students discover that they can read and understand Latin immediately without parsing. Such direct understanding gives students self-confidence and stimulates concentration. It sharpens their faculties of observation and reasoning – faculties that will be greatly needed as the sentences grow more complex. Reading in this way, they move step-by-step towards reading of Latin literature in Latin with real understanding and appreciation.

I looked over the sample pages and the first thing I thought was That makes it so easy! It must be cheating! Then I showed them to my three oldest, and they really enjoyed being able to read Latin. My 14 year-old daughter commented that Latina Christiana was too boring -- she wants to be able to read Latin now, not just memorize chants and rules.

I'm going to email the publisher and ask if it's appropriate for a mom with no Latin background.