A bit more, if I may, on the importance of macrons in Latin instruction: at the University of Georgia (UGA), it’s something we routinely emphasize in our introductory Latin classes. Learning macrons is a piece of cake if we and our students just learn proper pronunciation.

        Macrons simply indicate vowel quantity, just as SPELLING does in English, and that can mean a LOT; you wouldn't want to confuse “liber” with “līber” (a “book” with a “free man”) or “venit” with “vēnit” (Santa's coming–or, wait, has he already come?!!), any more than you would want to confuse your cap with your cape (try putting that cape on your HEAD), your coat with a cot (your coat, unless it's unhappily mink, is not a comfy place to sleep), your cat with Kate (unless that's the kitty's name, of course), your sheep with a ship (important if you’re looking for wool and not a sea cruise), or your sheet with a. . . . . oh, well, not to in indulge in scatology, you get the point: VOWEL sounds ARE important to MEANING in virtually every language, certainly in English as well as in Latin; and just as spelling can indicate differences of vowel sound in English, so the macron indicates differences of vowel sound in Latin.

        Beginning Latin students can just as easily remember to write “vēnit” (“she came”) vs. “venit” (“she comes”) as they can remember to write “cape” vs. “cap” (indeed, how can learning to position a macron directly over a vowel to indicate it’s pronounced long be any more difficult than learning to position an unpronounced letter, that pesky “silent -e,” all the way at the end of a word to indicate that a vowel appearing earlier in the word is long?), IF (a very important if) they have learned FROM THE BEGINNING the distinct PRONUNCIATIONS of the Latin words (“WAY-nit” vs. "WEH-nit"), just as they have learned the difference between the sounds of “rip” and “ripe.”

        Train your students to HEAR the differences between long and short vowels in Latin just as you do in English, and it’ll be easy enough for them to WRITE words with macrons, just as when they HEAR “sheep” they use the “long vowel indicator” <ee> vs. short <i> and write “sheep” not “ship”; and the best ways to train your beginning Latin students to HEAR are (a) to model correct pronunciation yourself as the teacher, every single day, and (b) to emphasize the importance of macrons in writing.

        In English we expect students and all literate persons to understand the implications for grammar and pronunciation of such forms as “can’t,” “isn’t,” “it’s” (vs. “its”), etc., and we expect students to include those tiny little marks when they write those words; in French, Spanish, German, and other modern languages students of all ages are responsible for learning a variety of accents and other diacritical marks from day one. Latin students can and should do the same; and the fact that advanced Latin textbooks commonly do NOT employ macrons makes it all the MORE important that students learn the differences of pronunciation indicated by macrons in their elementary courses.

        Marking vowel quantity, it should be noted, was an important matter to the Romans themselves, who experimented with various ways of indicating long vowels, such as writing the long vowel twice, ROOMA, or writing it in a LARGER capital than the other letters in a word.

        Students who are asked to learn macrons, which is simply asking them to learn THE CORRECT PRONUNCIATION of a word, from the BEGINNING have no more trouble with this than they do with learning to spell in English (a challenge, to be sure, but an important one) or learning the accents in French, Spanish, etc.

        My experience, entirely, is that students who are told matter-of-factly, from day one in their first Latin class, simply to regard macrons as part of a word's spelling AND who are told WHY this is important, in the simple terms I have suggested above, do not balk at the prospect, do not even think twice about it. (One small further incentive is our scoring system in UGA intro Latin classes and in my own more advanced classes: minus 1 point for the first macron error of either omission or commission, minus one-fifth point for others.)

        Often it is ADULT learners who have more trouble with this than youngsters, especially adult learners who were themselves previously taught by instructors who paid little or no attention to pronunciation and to the very important differences of pronunciation and, often, of usage and even root meaning signaled by those macrons. My beginning Latin students at UGA have VERY little difficulty dealing with macrons, when I present them simply as part of the spelling of a word--those who do have a bit of a problem at first are usually the ones who had studied some Latin earlier with teachers who were themselves uncomfortable with macrons and inconsistent in their own pronunciation and who, accordingly, gave little emphasis to the matter or told students it was unimportant.

        I can't appeal strongly enough for trying our utmost, in teaching or learning ANY language, to reproduce as faithfully as possible the aural/oral experience of that language; but this is particularly important for Latin, whose literature was intended for a listening audience and whose writers, especially the poets, were often at pains to manipulate vowel (and other) sounds for artistic effect through the use of such devices as assonance and onomatopoeia. Having the development of careful and consistent pronunciation skills as an objective, and appreciating that macrons are an essential aid toward meeting that objective, is not even a little “harsh”; quite the opposite, as it amounts to a teacher helping her/his students toward the fullest possible appreciation of, and even delight in, this quintessentially oral/aural language.

        My students don't find it at all unreasonable to be asked to use and recognize macrons; rather, they delight in hearing Latin spoken, and in letting it, deliciously, “fall from their lips.”

        So, I would say to teachers at any level, K-12 or college, have your students IGNORE macrons, IF (a) you are also happy for them to ignore spelling in English or accents in French, Spanish, and other modern languages (some teachers are, I know), and (b) you care nothing for instilling in them either a consistent pronunciation (without which they cannot “think” the language consistently, i.e., cannot hear it in their mind’s ear, and therefore cannot read the language with comfort either silently or aloud, and thus experience needless difficulties with spelling, writing, reading comprehension, etc.) or an appreciation of the ways in which Latin writers frequently manipulated the language’s sounds for a wide range of often powerful rhetorical and artistic effects.  

Rick