Dr. Richard A. LaFleur
(aka, <Doctor Illa Flora>)
lafleur922@hotmail.com

About the Professor

This site is open to ANYONE, and I hope it will be of some value, not just to my online students, but to Latinists everywhere, teachers as well as students! I will be most grateful to any visitor to this site who wishes to suggest other materials for these pages or other useful websites that should be posted on the LINKS pages. I cannot post all materials, but please email me any resources you think may be appropriate and I promise to give them prompt and careful attention.

Recipient of the 2013 ACTFL Papalia Award for Excellence in Teacher Education

2021 tribute in The Classical Outlook 

MILLE GRATIAS AC VALETE!!
R. A. (“Rick”) LaFleur, aka Doctor Illa Flora

TESTIMONIA

   Probably the most important feature of this tutorial and the accompanying texts is the emphasis placed on historical fidelity to the language over convenience. The constant recommendation to read passages aloud gives the student an auditory means of distinguishing between and retaining proper pronunciations and spellings. Of the four foreign languages I have ever studied, this tutorial has been the most exacting in requiring precision in all four features of learning language: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
     As far as the actual teaching method, it is at an optimal pace. Each pensum and its accompanying Caput in Wheelock has a variety of foci: morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. While this structure itself is internally varied, it is repeated regularly and in small enough elements that the student never loses practice with any one element but is never overwhelmed, either. Further, the non-linear progression–e.g., introducing most third conjugation verbs in one chapter and but then revisiting the -i verbs of that conjugation a few chapters later–makes sure that the student is constantly consolidating older material while simultaneously learning new material. To be honest, I cannot think of a single feature of the tutorial that needs improvement. Thank you very much for this opportunity–and I look forward to taking your second tutorial! 

                                                                     Andrew Deaton, pre-doctoral student in history

     Dr. LaFleur's instruction and guidance are peerless. The course was well structured, lending itself toward learning quickly. Working with Dr. LaFleur helped me gain a mastery of the language which will serve me well as I pursue a Masters of Theological Studies at Boston College.

                                                                     Deepan Rajaratnam, M.T.S. '16

I want to emphasize HOW MUCH I enjoyed doing Doctor Illa FlOra's tutorials, and I LOVE what he's done with improving Wheelock's!! It was a great service moving the footnotes into the main text and clarifying the contents in so many ways. I consider this book to be not just the superior Latin grammar textbook, but a CULTURAL GEM with all the insights that are provided about the Roman world and society. And the supplement Scribblers is equally important for forming the student into a well-rounded learner. Dr. LaFleur's curriculum has set the standard for future Latin instruction!

                                                                     Keith Saare, U.S. Army Chaplain

I took up studying Latin in my 60s shortly before retiring. I wanted to keep my mind active into old age and hopefully reduce the chances of dementia creeping up on me as happens to so many people these days.

I chose Latin for two reasons. Firstly: I wanted something that would really challenge me intellectually. Being more of a scientist and definitely not a natural linguist, having hated my brief introduction to Latin at school (probably due to poor teaching), Latin seemed a good choice. Secondly: I had always been interested in etymology, and as Latin is the root of so many words in the English dictionary, I now had further confirmation that I was making a good choice.

I cannot remember exactly how my collaboration with Rick started; maybe it was the publisher who made me aware when I first bought Wheelock’s Latin, but he has now been my distance learning coach for quite a few years.

I am so, so glad I did reach out to him because he has turned out to be an absolute diamond. His tireless enthusiasm for his subject is highly infectious and his endless patience has helped me out of some learning predicaments many times.

We worked through the whole of Wheelock’s Latin together, but we weren’t just learning the language. Rick’s curriculum ensured there was a really interesting mix of supporting Roman history, both political and social.

There were numerous snippets of real Latin text to study too: epitaphs, graffiti, excerpts from Latin poetry et cetera. It was a really interesting and immersive way to learn the language.

Once I had my certificate for completing the basic Wheelock’s course, Rick asked me if I wanted to progress further, and this is where the real journey began. We started studying Latin poetry studying work by Ovid and Vergil and the father of modern satire: Juvenal.

I had signed up for an intellectual challenge and, by Jove, I now had one. In Latin poetry word order is almost completely irrelevant and in some textbooks insufficient punctuation. Every line or verse has to comply with some form of rigorous meter: dactylic hexameter, hendecasyllabic, choliambic to name but a few. I was taught by Rick how to scan all these different meters.

I have been acquiring new skills all the time plus an understanding of the myriad terms for different rhetorical devices employed by the poets. I even discovered that the poets sometimes placed the words in a particular order to create actual ‘word pictures’.

Some of their work, Juvenal’s for example, was even multi-layered with multiple embedded messages. All this new knowledge imbued in me a profound respect for these ancient poets. How remarkably clever and talented they must have been writing and rewriting their work to not only fit the meter but actually sound interesting when it was recited with rhyming and other sound effects. All Latin poetry was recited out loud and not read in silence.

Juvenal’s satires provided an extraordinary insight into real Roman life: the corruption, moral depravity and abuse of fellow human beings was eye watering. After Juvenal we spent some time away from poetry studying Cicero’s remarkable work De Senectute (About Old Age).

We are now just completing our latest collaboration: translating and unravelling the messages contained in the poems by Catullus, who spent his life in a love-hate relationship with his Lesbia. There are both some really beautiful and highly emotional works in that collection.

Our next assignment, which I am looking forward to enormously, is another work by the Roman legend that was Cicero. This time it is a transcript of one of his speeches in the forum denouncing the evil Catiline.

Although we rarely speak on the phone and conduct nearly all our communication by e-mail, Rick has become a great friend and I feel I know a lot about him, his life and his family.

Although I am now doing more advanced work than most Latin university students, I don’t think I will ever be able to read Latin fluently, but I love the challenge of seeing a new piece of Latin text and starting to de-code it, and I wish to keep collaborating with Rick for as long I can.