sccarlson wrote:Tomorrow, another semester of teaching Greek begins for me, and on the first day of class I want them to engage in some Koine pleasantries.
I would welcome any suggestions. Some ideas I have include:
χαίρετε, ὄνομά μοι Στέφανος. τί ὄνομά σοι;
Any others I can work in?
Stephen
This may be way more than you want or need, but Jordash (Ἰσοκράτης) Kiffiak and the Biblical Language Center is the go-to place and person for this, IMO. Jordash helped lead the Koinê Fluency Workshop I and about 20 others attended in Fresno, CA, the first part of this month, courtesy of Dr. Randall Buth's Biblical Language Center, and largely developed its syllabus.
We received some handouts at the end (all copyrighted) that included the words we used and lots of basic TPR (Total Physical Response) phrases, and I bought an optional handout that lists verbs with the imperative forms easily found. (I mention Jordash's name because he created the bulk of this, I believe; I don't have my copies with me).
http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/the-blc-team/It's possible that these are only available to BLC course attendees. If so, and you want to make your NT Greek classes "come alive," I encourage you to get the materials (Books 1, 2A and 2B) and start working with them; thoroughly familiarize yourself audibly with Book 1 Living Koinê Greek) before attending a BLC Greek course. Act out the phrases with others until the words become second nature, even if you don't know the alphabet (I know you do, of course, but it works best if the learners are a blank slate when it comes to Koinê Greek, as if they're children just learning to speak before they know a thing about letters, grammar, etc.). Buth's Phonemic Koinê pronunciation is essential for using these materials properly, though.
My 2 cents.
PM me your email address I can put you in touch (assuming he'll respond, which I'm pretty sure he will) with a classmate who has used the course/books very successfully over the past year with his students. Now that he's attended a class in person, he probably has many new ideas for how to make Koinê a living language in his classes.
Eric S. Weiss