Campbell: Advances Chapter 10

[Paul-Nitz]

This thread is for discussing Con Campbell's book, Advances in the Study of Greek (2015) Chapter Ten:
“Teaching and Learning Greek”

The chapter discusses improvements on the Grammar Translation Method and overviews what it calls the “Immersion Method.”

I would have been disappointed if the book had nothing on pedagogy, but this chapter was a bit lacking.

The chapter points to Decker’s grammar as a great advance in the GT method because it includes sizeable readings. Yep, a neglible improvement.

The chapter does not even mention the whole class of primers based on readings (Peckett’s Thrasymachus, Saffire, Athenaze, Rouse/Mahoney, JACT) or books based on a more Audio Lingual approach (Polis, Living Koine).

The chapter’s description of “Immersion Method” is so cursory as to be of little value. A comparison of the pedagogical value of different methods was entirely missing. No distinction was made between what is truly the debunked “immesion method” and methods such as TPR and TPRS. No mention was made of the Polis Institute.

[Stephen Carlson]

I suppose those who are heavily into the cutting edge on this could be disappointed, but this chapter has more to say than anyone else in the mainstream. It is a good chapter for the book.

[RandallButh]

I suppose that may put me in the camp of those disappointed and on the cutting-edge. It's difficult to say at this stage.

Perhaps some encouragement for all could be gathered from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages:

The ACTFL website states:

ACTFL therefore recommends that language educators and their students use the target language as exclusively as possible (90% plus) at all levels of instruction during instructional time and, when feasible, beyond the classroom. In classrooms that feature maximum target-language use, instructors use a variety of strategies to facilitate comprehension and support meaning making.

New Testament studies can ignore that to their own disadvantage. Having reading as a goal does not change the necessary internal psycholinguistics for internalizing a language.
So without having read the chapter, I guess I'm *pre-disappointed. This state of affairs in NT studies is changing, though. Just a lot slower than one would imagine. You've got to love inertia. (Tongue in cheek).