I ordered the Cicero First Catilinarian Oration Digital Tuto and have already made a good start on it. I absolutely love this product! I especially like the 'whiteboard' format (just like being in a class) and the teacher himself is so clear and thorough. In particular, the teacher's approac to the text allows me to see how the sentence is working (so fundamental to reading Latin but so often overlooked) and I am confident that my reading ability will improve immeasurably (already, I 'm less frightened of unseens!). Thank you for providing such a wonderful resource!

—Kind regards,
Claudette Wilkinson
Sydney, Australia

This DVD is one of several items available from the North American Publishing firm, Bolchazy-Carducci (www.bolchazy.com) which can very usefully support the teaching of Cicero's In Catilinam 1 as the current AS Latin Prose set text. The DVD contains detailed linguistic analysis of the speech in a range of forms and is designed for viewing on either a PC or Macintosh platform. The video lectures play using internet browsers: Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 2. Every sentence of the speech is analyzed with parts of speech highlighted in color, arrows linking adjectives to the nouns they modify and speech bubbles identifying grammatical terminology. There are word lists divided by frequency and parts of speech for study and review. One other significant feature is the complete line-by-line concordance for the entire speech.

The use of this DVD certainly involves a distinctive approach to the presentation of In Catilinam 1. Some may feel there is too great an emphasis on the linguistic dissection of the text for their students, but nevertheless 'this innovative learning tool' should inspire in students a much greater confidence in their understanding 'as they tackle the complex Latin of Cicero's oration'. The DVD can be obtained from the Hellenic Bookservice in Kentish Town, London ( www.hellenicbookservice.com ).

—Robert Tatam
Bancroft's School
JACT 3.18.Autumn