Self Taught Living Koine ?

Jonathan Robie
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Mark Lightman wrote:
Jonathan asked What's available on youtube? Any suggestions?
Yes, check out my You-Tube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Markos33AD?feature=mhee

Under favorites I think I have included virtually every CONVERSATIONAL (as opposed to just reading ancient texts) Ancient Greek video out there, but more are being made and added every day.
OK, just for you, I have now added a youtube tag to B-Greek.

Suppose you want to post a video with the url http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKvMzSckbKo. Put the identifier for the video in a youtube tag like this:

Code: Select all

[youtube]eKvMzSckbKo[/youtube]
The result looks like this:



So please keep us posted on the good things you find out there!
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Matt Johnston wrote:What would be a feasible path to fluency for someone who is self taught?
I'm working on this question myself. I haven't achieved the kind of fluency Daniel Streett describes in his blog, so I have very recently decided to take on some of these oral methods - as much as is feasible for me, as a self-taught person working a lot of hours and trying to be a good husband and father.

Mark Lightman's description sounds to me like you have to spend 8 hours a day on Greek, and that just isn't practical for most of the self-taught. Some of the other descriptions assume you have a teacher who is making sure you are in an immersion environment - which is precisely what you don't have if you are self-taught.

Here are some things I've been doing that seem to have been helpful:

  • Listen to a chapter a few times before you read it, try to get it in your ears first. Then read along with the audio until you are sure you are correctly hearing the words in each phrase without reading along. Then listen again, and note the sections you don't understand yet, spend some time working them out (vocabulary, unfamiliar verb forms, etc.). Repeat until you can listen to a chapter with confidence that you understand each phrase, each word, each verb form. Then go on to the next chapter.
  • When learning verb forms, get several examples of each verb form from the text of the New Testament, and read them out loud. I have been writing queries to simplify this process. Ideally, I'd like to have audio for these, and a Rosetta-style interface for reviewing, but I don't have those yet. (I'm thinking about what kinds of software would be helpful, since software is something I know how to do.) I wish there were a Rosetta Stone for Ancient Greek, but I don't know of one yet.
  • I'm noticing that I am actually starting to think of Greek phrases spontaneously when I try to write simple sentences, though it's still very slow. My next venture is going to be to start with a Greek composition book that has an answer key.
Anyone want to critique this list and offer suggestions for improvement, under the assumption that (1) this is for the self-taught, without a teacher (or with a teacher available only via email / phone), and (2) it has to fit in the time available for someone who is not a full-time student?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
RandallButh
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by RandallButh »

You might consider making time to attend an intensive "Fluency Workshop". 8-10 days can provide a time to make a significant increase in fluency and to build something in the part of the brain where languages are supposed to be built. This 'short formula' of 8-10 days is built around what some modern languages have used and is intended to allow teachers and those with a small amount of flexibility to fit into a full-time job. Naturally, longer periods are even better, but they are much harder to organize around family, work, or school schedules. We're still feeling the effects and getting positive feedback from the Fresno Workshop. I think that close to 100% were pleasantly surprised.

Our next workshop is 28Dec-6 January, Jerusalem. (Biblical Language Center)

Randall Buth
Louis L Sorenson
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by Louis L Sorenson »

Self-taught Living Koine, methinks, is a hard thing to do. You need a teacher. You need a group of students with which to interact. There are few opportunities for a student to learn via living language methodologies via the internet. My 1st suggestion, buy Randall's Living Koine, volume 1 and master it. (if you cannot attend one of his ulpans). 2nd, see if you can join a class in your area with someone who at least incorporates some oral/aural content. Randall's other materiel is excellent - you cannot go wrong on purchasing it. It will get you closer to where you want to be than any other book will get you. I'm totally convinced that learning language by using it is the way to go.

Here is where I come from: This year is my third year moving from a traditional curriculum towards an active learning, spoken in class, conversational method of teaching. This has been a slow, methodical move, driven by people like Randall Buth (whose classes I would love to attend, ἀλλἀ τά χρήματά μοι οὐχ ὑπάρχει.), Daniel Streett, and others. It has taken me several years to switch. What is kind of amazing to me, is that the discussion about grammar, does not teach language - talking about it after you use it helps - talking about it before is of significantly less value. The self-taught student generally only learns grammar, and does not have the resources to use a language. This is a huge problem. But the traditional student is in the same pickle, believe it or not.

The hardest thing about using an active, spoken methodology is that the teacher has to find a way to supplement the 60 hours of class time (or 96 hours = 32 weeks x 3 days a week) with other ways of immersing the student in oral/audio content, along with written content. Language teachers say it takes 300-500 hours of instruction for a student to learn the basics of a 2nd language, and 1200-1500 hours to become somewhat competent in that language. When I had Beginning Greek in the 1970's, we met every day for an hour (55 min); even that came to only 160 hours of instruction. From what I hear and read (I'm not in the academic world any more), most Beginning Greek classes meet three days a week, or less. So how does a teacher fill those missing hours? He/she needs to have audio, exercises, Greek-Greek worksheets, and anything else that will get him/her starting to recognize and hear the basic language structure patterns.

One of the things that I think is lacking in Greek language pedagogy, is the ability to teach students how to learn a "case language". How to build up endurance from understanding simple sentence kernels to longer periods. How to understand Greek flexible word order, emphasis, and subordination. The average English prose sentence (well-written) is 15-20 words per sentence (spoken, 14.3) ; the average length of a sentence in Thucydides is 20-25 words. I would like to know Plato's average sentence length, which must be shorter. Thucydides longest sentence is 160 words; Ephesians 3:1-12 is 202 words. Also, words are gapped in Greek which are not gapped (omitted) in English. It is my belief that traditional grammar teaching does not "condition" a student to be able to recognize these structures with ease. Greek sometimes introduces a subject, object without clearly expanding on it (giving the verb or action) until 10-30 words down the road - it expects the reader/hearer to remember and hang onto words until a clause or two down the road. English is not like that -- It is difficult to find ways to teach this outside of repetitive teaching of structures - which is possible when using living language (spoken methodologies) as the pedagogical tool.

That's where living language comes in. In a class which is spoken, you can say 30+ words a minute, with ease. In an hour, (with some intermittent English explanations) perhaps 1800 words. This is the repetition that students need. From a teacher's standpoint, that could seem awfully monotonous - but modern cognitive theory states that it take 50-70 repetitions for the average learner to intuitively grasp a language feature (or any other skill - e.g. driving through an intersection). Traditional Greek language teaching cannot approach that number of repetitions - and thus only the super-talented survive. Many (most students) learn to abhor Greek, and will never touch it again for the rest of their lives (this includes many pastors and professors of Bible and Theology). That's why I've been teaching - or trying to teach using spoken ancient Greek. When a word gets into a students head, and moves from their short term memory to their long term memory, they seldom forget it. Do you want to put grease on the wall or glue on the wall? I vote for glue.

Finally, and I am reluctant to offer it, I don't teach in a university or college, but I am teaching a class (gratis) using living language methods - I'm not 100% there yet. I've been video-recording my classes, and have been providing active learning content to about 7 (ἐν τῷ σώματι) students this year. I'm not super internet savvy, but can manage. I don't have plans to go through a whole 1st year grammar - I'm more on the Athanaze plan. Occasionally, I even make gaffs (as does Michelle Bachman, GOP Presidential candidate, in whose state I live -- I actually was her UPS driver for 10 years). But if you have read this far, and want to participate/audit my course (if it can be called a course at this point) you are more than welcome. Just drop me a note - use the B-Greek private message link. I'm putting up a Moodle e-learning site for my class with many resources for the learner. I'm including audio for as many as I can do and for which I have time. I'm also teaching an intermediate course based on readings from John. What's needed to start? 1) Learn how to pronounce and hear Living Koine (i.e. Get Living Koine, vol. 1 by Buth, vol. 1 = $70) - nothing else like that is available. 2) Drop me a note. I can't promise to answer your questions or talk with you, but I can help you a little in learning Greek via living language methodologies and help steer you in the right direction.

Ἔρρωσο,
Λεονίδας
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

RandallButh wrote:You might consider making time to attend an intensive "Fluency Workshop". 8-10 days can provide a time to make a significant increase in fluency and to build something in the part of the brain where languages are supposed to be built. This 'short formula' of 8-10 days is built around what some modern languages have used and is intended to allow teachers and those with a small amount of flexibility to fit into a full-time job. Naturally, longer periods are even better, but they are much harder to organize around family, work, or school schedules. We're still feeling the effects and getting positive feedback from the Fresno Workshop. I think that close to 100% were pleasantly surprised.

Our next workshop is 28Dec-6 January, Jerusalem. (Biblical Language Center)
I would love to do this ... and perhaps some time I can, but it won't work during the family holidays for me.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Eric S. Weiss
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Joined: June 9th, 2011, 1:45 pm

Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by Eric S. Weiss »

RandallButh wrote:You might consider making time to attend an intensive "Fluency Workshop". 8-10 days can provide a time to make a significant increase in fluency and to build something in the part of the brain where languages are supposed to be built. This 'short formula' of 8-10 days is built around what some modern languages have used and is intended to allow teachers and those with a small amount of flexibility to fit into a full-time job. Naturally, longer periods are even better, but they are much harder to organize around family, work, or school schedules. We're still feeling the effects and getting positive feedback from the Fresno Workshop. I think that close to 100% were pleasantly surprised.

Our next workshop is 28Dec-6 January, Jerusalem. (Biblical Language Center)

Randall Buth
Yep. It was fun and invigorating. I posted a bit about the experience in this thread: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... f=15&t=751
Eric S. Weiss
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Lots of stuff to respond to here ...

I actually have Randall's Living Koine, Volume 1 and Volumes 2a and 2b. I find most of Volume 1 very easy - I assume it's best to work through it anyway and log the hours?

In the last two weeks, I've been listening to more than an hour of Greek audio each day on my MP3 player, using mostly recordings that use the modern pronunciation - mostly Romanós and Pella Ikonomaki, and the Zodhiates sampler with Mark 2 (I also ordered the entire New Testament from Amazon. I also have recordings from Louis and Randall in Restored Pronunciation, which are excellent and easy to understand if I'm listening to modern pronunciation, having originally learned Erasmian.

It's easy enough to get an hour a day of listening immersion with an MP3 player, you can do that when you go for a walk or do the dishes or lie in bed while your spouse takes the first shower or take the dogs out. And I've found that even logging 20 hours or so of careful listening in the last two weeks makes a pretty big difference in my reading fluency. I think that's the easiest way for me to get a lot of high quality time listening to Greek. And realistically, finding things I can actually do is very important.

I agree that reading about grammar is less helpful than reading lots of examples - or listening to lots of examples. I can easily generate sets of examples to illustrate most things using queries, but it's written text, not audio text, and it doesn't have the kind of targeted drills that you get with many software programs. I'd like to be able to plug these sentences into a framework like Rosetta Stone to get drilled on grammar using oral language. Moodle is a reasonable framework too - I'm definitely interested in seeing what Louis has done.

But my writing / speaking fluency is essentially nil. So I've just started working my way through North and Hillard, because it has an answer key. Is there a better alternative for working on writing?

I think I'm now convinced that listening to lots of Greek is important, but it's hard to put myself in a speaking environment. And most of what I see on Youtube doesn't really show people speaking Greek all that fluently - it's nothing like the level of speaking fluency I would expect an upper level German or French student to have. And the subject matter is often more boring than the Greek texts that I'm most interested in hearing. It seems that conversational Greek is the hardest, and I'm also not as sure that it is as important, if my goal is to be able to read texts. I suspect that people like Carl Conrad probably haven't spent a lot of time with conversational Greek, but I could be wrong.

German is a case language, and there are certainly lots of resources for teaching German. I wonder if we could steal some ideas from them?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
RandallButh
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by RandallButh »

and I'm also not as sure that it is as important, if my goal is to be able to read texts.
You might want to read the comments on the Frank Smith article by Brian Schultz at
http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/f ... rehension/

good reading requires the building of fluency capability in the brain.
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by Jonathan Robie »

RandallButh wrote:
and I'm also not as sure that it is as important, if my goal is to be able to read texts.
You might want to read the comments on the Frank Smith article by Brian Schultz at
http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/f ... rehension/

good reading requires the building of fluency capability in the brain.
There's more than one kind of fluency.

For the self-taught, I think it's relatively easy to find the materials needed for listening fluency, or even for basic writing skills (I'm not sure if that will extend to writing fluency or not, I'm just getting started on this). And reading material is extremely easy to find.

Where would you suggest the self-taught go for conversational fluency? Especially conversational fluency using the kind of sentence structure and vocabulary likely to be encountered in the texts that are of most interest?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
RandallButh
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Re: Self Taught Living Koine ?

Post by RandallButh »

There's more than one kind of fluency.
They are connected, interrelated, and ultimately based on a capability that subconsciously produces thought.

ει θελω ειπειν τι εμαυτω δει με αρξασθαι εν τη ελληνικη και ανοιξαι το στωμα η τον νουν. τοτε οψομαι τι αναβησεται.

That was a line of unedited drivel that arose from the end of the previous line. Yes, the higher the level the better reader I become. It's funny, maybe like tennis players who lift weights and find out that they can serve at a new level, or someone who diets and finds that they can run/walk farther. All within appropriate frameworks, of course.

The big point, though, is that only reading does not build the capability that Frank Smith was talking about. REading is where we probably learn over half of our first or any language used in rapid communication, but this learning is built on a fluent core.
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