Seeking Help with new Koine vocab-building supplement

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solomon_powell
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Seeking Help with new Koine vocab-building supplement

Post by solomon_powell »

I'm currently facilitating work on the "C.L.A.P. Picture Memory Game", which will comprise a very simple audio-visual Koine vocabularly-building supplement. (CLAP = "click", "listen", & "point")

At present there is a need for narrators, consultants for more analytic competency-type matters, and consultants for more communicative competency-type matters.

If you'd like to learn more, more is below.

for the One,

Solomon Powell


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Recent years have seen a wonderful beginning in the development of resources that facilitate learning Koine Greek conversationally / communicatively --- resources that are especially designed to nurture communicative competency, as a wonderful complement to analytic competency.

I have had a desire to see the development of a comprehensive "itinerary" for new learners-- a set of rough guidelines for things like which resources to use at which stage in one's learning, how much time to spend with such resources at each stage.

I began with the guidelines and principles I was taught under Professor Greg Thomsen and his "Growing Participator Approach", and his 6-phase program. Early on, I noticed that there appeared to be a gap between the ammount of vocabularly available in current resources and the ammount the learner will need (per Professor Thomsen's guidelines) to progress in a maximally efficient manner.

This vocab supplement is a small attempt to contribute something towards filling that gap.

It is not itself a curriculum. It is simply a supplement. It's purpose is limitted. Further, it is quite rudimentary. I hope, by the grace of the King, it will nonetheless be pedagogically effective.

The game is comprised of simple (very very simple, in many cases) sketches, synched with audio.

Each game card has about 6-10 pictures on it. This reality of multiple pictures on each card affords some benefits. It allows for words to be, in some cases, pictured alongside of other words in their semantic domain. Further, in combination with the game, it allows for the facilitation of a degree of TPR. Learners are to point (with their physical hand) to the picture that matches with the audio they hear playing. They hear it with their ears, see it with their eyes, and point to it with their hand.
The audio tracks gradually mix in the preceeding words on each card, in a manner patterned after Prof. Thomsen's "Quick and Dirty Dozen" style, for which I can take no credit save in the imperfections of its implementation in this form. I hope it will be fun!

The gamecards operate using a computer software program "HyperStudio". It is a quite neat and clean program. The Hyperstudio player can be freely distributed worldwide allong with the game cards. In addition to the game cards, there are extensive note files documenting each sense of each word that occurs in each game card. My pattern was to require 2 unambiguous citations from actual Koine texts with the word occuring with the meaning depicted in the game card, for each word. I follow L+N's numbering system for words occuring in the New Testament text, and have added three additional "hodgepodge domains" for an additional 450 words, including a good number not found in the New Testament.

The supplement includes nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Verbs are given in simple, realistic clauses.

I tried to give attention to activeness/passiveness distinctions for verbs, mass/count distinctions in nouns, and actual real-life referent attribution for adjectives.

The simple instruction and demonstration video found here offers a glimpse: http://youtu.be/7Hd9rPcGgIk

A sample of the notes files documenting the words can be sent upon request.

I am currently seeking...

1) Narrators.

People to record the words and phrases that occur on each game card. This can be done from
your home and then just send the recordings to me electronically.
The verb forms include simple clauses. (for example, for the picture depicting the verb "ἀποθλίβω", there is a picture of a man squeezing a cluster of grapes, as per the use in Antiquities 2, 64). The recording for this picture will be "ἀποθλίβει ..... αὐτός ἀποθλίβει τὸν βότρυν"

This is the general pattern for verbs. I've decided to use the Buthian pronunciation system, so one has to be comfortable with that.

Game cards average 10-25 minutes of recording, depending on the number of words (and more verbs = longer recordings).
So it can take upwards of 40 minutes to record all the little tracks for a single gamecard. If it is found pleasing, for every 10 game cards for which you record the entire set of words, I will happily send you 50 game
cards to keep, as they are completed.




2) An analytic competency consultant.

Someone with a good ammount of analytic competency that can reduce the number of questions I burden doctor Buth with from month to month.




3) Two communicative competency consultants:

One to read through the word lists to weed out any mistakes in forms or instances in which the book-form might not necessarily be the form used in everyday speech, etc.

One to be available on stand-by for questions/consult as things arise. I average one or two questions a month I'd say.

This will be a non-commercial, education resource. Those involved in Bible translation
worldwide have a special place in my heart. I've had them in mind from the beginning. If found
desirable, it will be gladly offered as a gift to them, hopefully in concert with a comprehensive itinerary, in
time. The resource has been the culmination of the kindnesses of many. And I stand amazed. More
help is needed now. Feel free to inquire more details.


For the delight of the One,

Solomon Powell

solomon_powell@wycliffe.org
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