Charlotte H. answered • 07/15/21
Two MAs in Classics (Cornell and University of Illinois U-C)
What a cool question! There actually are, for example, "textbooks" that the ancient Romans used to teach Latin as a foreign language. These "textbooks" look a little different than what you might be used to today--they are mostly example dialogues in Latin that learners could use to practice. But the goal was still the same, to teach people how to communicate in a new language!
If you're interested in reading more about this topic, there is a book called "Learning Latin the Ancient Way: Latin Textbooks from the Ancient World" by Eleanor Dickey (2016). Prof. Dickey actually wrote an entire modern Latin textbook based on these ancient ones too! It's called "Learn Latin from the Romans" (2018).
