Expert Latinist and Hellenist

Hello, I am Alexander!

I earned my BA in Spanish and Classical Philology at the National University of Colombia. While much of my time during my degree was spent in pursuit of mastery of the Latin and Greek languages, I found when I had completed my degree that I had not reached a level of proficiency in Latin and Greek which would allow me to understand texts beyond a basic level. For this reason, I went to the Accademia Vivarium Novum in Italy for a year, where, not only did I learn to communicate and compose in Latin and Greek, but also, I achieved my goal of understanding more deeply Latin and Greek texts, discerning the intertextualities present in these works, observing the particularities of style between different periods and authors, etc.

Since then, I have dedicated myself to transmitting this knowledge: I have taught at the Accademia Vivarium Novum during their summer courses, I am a current professor in the Faculty of Theology of the Unicervantes University in Bogotá, where I teach Latin and Greek to students of all levels, and additionally, I remotely tutor students from Russia, the United States, Spain, and Italy.

In my classes, I use the Inductive-Contextual Method, which, as its name suggests, encourages students to learn a given language through contextual clues and with reference to other words in the same language. In other words, the method requires that whichever language a student wishes to acquire be the primary language of instruction. Other tools which I implement in my teaching are TPR (Total Physical Response), Storytelling, and Story-building. Put more simply, during my sessions, I have students describe paintings, videos, and songs and act out theatrical scenes from which we compose short narrations in the target language. All the materials used are based on the Danish linguist, Hans Ørberg’s, Lingua Latina per se Illustrata series of books. However, I also use materials of my own, which comprise fragments I have compiled from different periods of Latin and Greek, giving students access to a diverse array of textual matter with which to study style, poetry, history, and philosophy. Ultimately, students who have undergone this method of instruction will have acquired the tools to approach these texts with confidence. Indeed, my own experiences with this method have proven to me that this is the most effective and enjoyable way to learn Latin and Greek!

Venite frequentes!

Ἕρρωσθε!