A Matter of Pedagogy ( was Re: [B-Greek] AUTOS)
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Oct 27 19:14:54 EST 2003
This was pretty clearly intended for the list, but the list address got
mis-spelled (should be <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>).
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:04:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Mark Lama <markosl80 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: A Matter of Pedagogy ( was Re: [B-Greek] AUTOS)
To: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibliblio.org
"Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> wrote:
....This relates to a pedagogical matter of no little importance. How much of
what one teaches in a primer or first-year course should have to be
qualified or unlearned later. I've always felt that beginning students
should be made aware at the outset that the elements they are learning are
more complex than what they are being taught in the first exposure: one
should be made aware at the outset that AUTOS may bear a different sense
when it's hO AUTOS or when its AUTOS hO; one should be made aware words and
constructions do not represent exact counterparts in another language. At
the least, when one is introduced to a new construction in terms of its
simplest or most common usage, one should be made aware that there is more
in this matter than can be absorbed at once.
--
[Mark]
I couldn't agree more with these remarks. I think many of us could make a
long list of things that we learned in oversimplified form without
adequate warning, and had to figure out piece by piece as we went on. Some
of the things I could name, in addition to the use of AUTOS, would be the
use of the cases, especially the oblique cases (i.e., accusative taught as
if it always corresponded to English direct object, dative taught as if it
were always dative, and not three cases in one, genitive taught as if it
were merely an apostrophe-"s", etc.) the use of voice, as has been much
discussed on this list, the use of the subjunctive mood, the use of the
infinitive, participle, the use of common prepositions, conjunctions, the
range of meaning of many common verbs and nouns-- and the list goes on.
Obviously, only so much can be presented at once to beginning students
without overwhelming them. Oversimplification, however, buys superficial
"understanding" at the cost of residual confusion. The crying need in Koine
Greek pedagogy is a more deliberate attempt to help the student learn to
think outside the "box" of his own language, i.e., not to think of Greek as
a "code" that we are trying to systematically "decode" into English.
CARIS KAI EIRHNH,
Mark Lama
Do you Yahoo!?
Exclusive Video Premiere -
<http://launch.yahoo.com/video/?1093432&fs=1&redirectURL=http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/>Britney
Spears
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list