From:Mediaeval Latin Blog.

It is a tough question to ask. Perhaps, the more important question is what do you want to do with your Latin?
Chris Jones at LatinLanguage.us posted recently about the age old debate of how to teach Latin. Like Chris, I first encountered the Latin Language through Wheelock’s Latin, a text that has been used in countless high schools and universities for half a century. Wheelock has many detractors, however, who believe that focusing on grammar and translation from the start is a flawed, and leads to Latinists who are never quite comfortable in the Language. Indeed, although Latin is still taught around the world - very few people can actually speak it with any degree of fluency. Although exact numbers of truly fluent Latin speakers is difficult to ascertain, some have suggested the number is less than 200 people worldwide. This is somewhat shocking when you consider how many people still study the language.
So, if you’re just starting off, what is the best approach for you to take?
Conversational approach
There has always been a vocal minority of teachers who have argued that Latin should be taught like any other modern language arguing that basic conversation skills should be stressed from the beginning. A recent proponent of this style of teaching, is Evan Millner who has developed an excellent podcast series based on a nineteenth century Latin textbook written by George Adler. Adler’s book has been largely ignored over the past century, but also stressed the conversational approach, albeit with quite a bit of grammar too.
However, the obvious problem with trying to resurrect spoken Latin is that it extremely difficult to practice. With the exception of online groups, it is hard to find opportunities to speak to anyone.
It is obviously also slower to begin with (at least at first.) If your goal is to be able to read Cicero or Augustine soon, rather prepare for the unlikely scenario that you will be forced to time travel back to the first century and then have to order a cup of wine (da mihi vinum, quaeso!), then a different approach may be more prudent.
This is not to disparage those that advocate spoken fluency. Just that, for some people, it is just not practical. There is no question that to truly learn a language you cannot avoid the spoken aspect, but if you goal is to appreciate Latin literature - I think there is a shorter route.
Fluent Reading
When I first learned Latin, my teacher instructed me to always search for the verb first. Then identify the subject, object and finally their modifiers. Latin sentences were to be decoded - something like a mathematical puzzle. Although this method works fine if all you want to do is pass school tests and be able to parse verbs, it is a terrible approach if you want to be able to really understand Latin at a deeper level.
A year or so after my first encounter with Latin I happened upon a transcript of an address made in 1887 by William Gardner Hale entitled “The Art of Reading Latin: How to Teach It”. It blew me away after I read it. In his essay, Gardner lamented the code breaking style of Latin teaching and stressed an approach which blended grammatical knowledge and natural word order. Gardner suggested that there is nothing wrong not knowing what a given word is doing in the sentence when you first encounter it. Just plow ahead and it will all become clear as you come to the end of the sentence. Remember, he argues, Romans didn’t know what “cum” meant either when it first appears in a sentence, a word which carries so many possibilities. It might be “with, although, since, when…”. Don’t decide at first. Just read it and move on.
Others have since taken up the cause of this style of teaching reading Latin fluency. There are some course which teach it such as William Harris’ Intelligent Person’s Guide to Latin Grammar. But even if you don’t have a specific course which follows this route, you can incorporate Garder Hale’s method into almost any other course - including Wheelock.
To really read Latin with any degree of fluency - you must read it in the Latin word order. I believe that this can and should be stressed in the beginning. It was with some effort that I forced myself to unlearn some of the bad advice I got in the beginning.
Over the next few weeks, I plan to review some of the major courses available. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. So, stay tuned!