"I want to be able to SMOOTHLY read the newspaper in Koine!"
Posted: March 7th, 2013, 7:09 pm
"I want to be able to smoothly read the newspaper in Koine Greek"!
Teachers and learners of Koine Greek come to the learning 'table' with goals that range as widely as methods employed to reach them. And this is healthy. I myself have been in teaching and learning settings where I have had goals ranging from, on the one hand, the bare bones analytic competency required to look Greek words in a Greek-English lexicon (a wonderfully valuable skill), to, on the other end of the spectrum, full communicative competency. Setting, time, purpose, etc. all are reasonable factors that lead people to pursue different learning goals. And I like that.
It is hoped that the following thoughts will be found of particular value to those who, for one reason or another, aim at the highest levels of (particularly) communicative competency.
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"I want to be able to smoothly* read the newspaper in Koine Greek"!
(*'smoothly' is relative, but with a relatively low level of the herk and jerk caused by needing to look words up)
For those who aim to someday be able to have a communicative competency (including a listening comprehension system) that enables them to be able to sit down and read Koine texts with a relative degree of smoothness ... how much vocabulary will be needed?
Now, let's be honest, vocabulary is not the only piece of the puzzle, by any means. In fact, it is only one of the five "Big Five" principles offered by Professor Thomson. A learner will need to develop a feel for the grammar and structure for instance, as one teacher reminded me. I wholeheartedly agree. Vocabulary is only one piece of the puzzle. And so, the following post admittedly will be quite limited in that it limits itself to vocabulary. Even more particularly, it limits itself to the question of how much vocabulary is needed for the higher levels of communicative competency.
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So exactly how much vocabulary is needed to understand how much?
The research has been done. It may be quite shocking. (Yet for those for whom it is shocking, let me say that it may be more easily attainable than first imagined)
Professor Thomson has a Masters in Linguistics and a Doctorate in PsychoLinguistics, and has been the leading second language acquisition authority in the organization with incomparably far and away the most hours of linguistic fieldwork in human history (S.I.L.). His "Growing Participator Approach" synthesizes insights from the best of second language acquisition. It is used in over 76 countries. And even if not all of it's strengths are customizable for learner's of Koine Greek, I submit my belief that those who wish to reach the highest levels of communicative competency in a maximally efficient manner will find incredible gems of insight in not a few of his principles.
The particular 3-activity demonstration of his (linked below) takes less than 15 minutes.
Those interested may find his 'iceberg principle' for vocabulary valuable for further reading. It can be found in a separate post of mine.
Professor Thomson's 3-activity demonstration: Google Drive (wasn't able to reproduce the charts in this post):
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-eeaUV ... sp=sharing
Teachers and learners of Koine Greek come to the learning 'table' with goals that range as widely as methods employed to reach them. And this is healthy. I myself have been in teaching and learning settings where I have had goals ranging from, on the one hand, the bare bones analytic competency required to look Greek words in a Greek-English lexicon (a wonderfully valuable skill), to, on the other end of the spectrum, full communicative competency. Setting, time, purpose, etc. all are reasonable factors that lead people to pursue different learning goals. And I like that.
It is hoped that the following thoughts will be found of particular value to those who, for one reason or another, aim at the highest levels of (particularly) communicative competency.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I want to be able to smoothly* read the newspaper in Koine Greek"!
(*'smoothly' is relative, but with a relatively low level of the herk and jerk caused by needing to look words up)
For those who aim to someday be able to have a communicative competency (including a listening comprehension system) that enables them to be able to sit down and read Koine texts with a relative degree of smoothness ... how much vocabulary will be needed?
Now, let's be honest, vocabulary is not the only piece of the puzzle, by any means. In fact, it is only one of the five "Big Five" principles offered by Professor Thomson. A learner will need to develop a feel for the grammar and structure for instance, as one teacher reminded me. I wholeheartedly agree. Vocabulary is only one piece of the puzzle. And so, the following post admittedly will be quite limited in that it limits itself to vocabulary. Even more particularly, it limits itself to the question of how much vocabulary is needed for the higher levels of communicative competency.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So exactly how much vocabulary is needed to understand how much?
The research has been done. It may be quite shocking. (Yet for those for whom it is shocking, let me say that it may be more easily attainable than first imagined)
Professor Thomson has a Masters in Linguistics and a Doctorate in PsychoLinguistics, and has been the leading second language acquisition authority in the organization with incomparably far and away the most hours of linguistic fieldwork in human history (S.I.L.). His "Growing Participator Approach" synthesizes insights from the best of second language acquisition. It is used in over 76 countries. And even if not all of it's strengths are customizable for learner's of Koine Greek, I submit my belief that those who wish to reach the highest levels of communicative competency in a maximally efficient manner will find incredible gems of insight in not a few of his principles.
The particular 3-activity demonstration of his (linked below) takes less than 15 minutes.
Those interested may find his 'iceberg principle' for vocabulary valuable for further reading. It can be found in a separate post of mine.
Professor Thomson's 3-activity demonstration: Google Drive (wasn't able to reproduce the charts in this post):
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-eeaUV ... sp=sharing