[B-Greek] Nouns first, later Verbs

WarrenFulton at telering.at WarrenFulton at telering.at
Tue Jan 20 09:30:22 EST 2004


This thread has been unraveling a bit into three strands, all of them 
of key importance in evaluating the effectiveness of a language 
teaching program. The strands are sequencing, scope, and selection.

Mitch Larramore wrote:
> Mounce states in his Basic Greek Grammar that it is
> best to study the Noun system first, and to withhold
> discussion of the Verb until much later. He says that
> this makes it easier to learn Greek.

Rodney J. Decker then explained the Mounce approach:
> Even though the student doesn\'t formally learn verbal forms until 
> after the nouns, they see plenty of them early--all translated, and
> many with explanatory notes, etc., so that the student can \"read\"
> normal sentences. By the time they get to verbs, they already have
> a fairly good \"feel\" for how verbs work.

These posts call attention to the problem of sequencing content in 
language courses. Most language courses today, instead of marshaling 
content around broad chapter banners like \"nouns\" and \"verbs\" or 
even \"a-declension nouns\" and \"present indicative verbs,\" tend to use 
the sentence itself as a showcase to roll out new forms as they are 
needed. All core sentence constituents are assembled early on and 
developed in increments radiating outward from simple to complex and 
from concrete to abstract. Peripheral constituents are added 
gradually. This is called \"concentric\" sequencing as opposed to 
the \"linear\" plan of such classics as White’s _First Greek Book_. 
Concentric programming solves the problem of how to practice the 
language almost right away in complete sentences without overwhelming 
the student with all kinds of unknown forms that then have to be 
translated or explained.

Kathleen Borsari commented:
> I don\'t think it matters than much what order you teach things in.

Designers of language courses and experienced language teachers would 
not agree with this view. It is easier to follow a carefully 
inclined, cleared path up the mountain than to hack your way through 
thickets and pull yourself up vertical cliffs.

        hO MH POIWN DIKAIOSUNHN OUK ESTIN EK TOU QEOU
      hO POIWN DIKAIOSUNHN EK TOU QEOU ESTIN
     hO POIWN DIKAIOSUNHN DIKAIOS ESTIN
    hO DIKAIOS DIKAIOSUNHN POIEI
   hO DIKAIOS ERGA KALA POIEI
  DIKAIOS OUK ESTIN
DIKAIOS ESTIN

The cries for help from students in haphazardly sequenced courses or 
courses that start halfway up the mountain can be heard often on this 
list.

Terry Cook said:
> Greek week #1: I learn the alphabet and then week #2- I\'m thrown
> into the fire!! Wierd endings, 20 words to memorize which look
> nothing like English, and the following week..... more of the same.
> Whew!! I suggest a slower pace [...]

Terry’s frustration stems not so much from class pace as from the 
more fundamental problem of scope. Scope refers to dosage, i.e. the 
concentration of new target items within a lesson and their density 
throughout a course. Kathleen echoed this frustration:

> Most of the books are written by college professors, though, and
> their goal is to teach all the basics of Greek in 1 year, which is
> an impossible goal for \"normal\" students.

When the scope of a course is dictated by such externals and not by 
the absorption rate of \"normal\" students, we get overloaded circuits, 
breakdowns, and dropouts.

Of course, as Dr. Decker pointed out:
> Those studying on their own can set their own pace, and those of
> you home schooling, can do something similar, esp. if you\'re
> introducing classical languages in the lower grades and have, say,
> 6-8 years over which to develop proficiency.

Setting one’s own pace can be difficult, however, when lesson 
contents are too tightly bunched and fail to provide for adequate 
reinforcement. On the other hand, if one has a smooth progression of 
material with easy, organic movement from one point to the next, one 
can move along leisurely, speedily, as one likes.

It is certainly self-defeating to try to cover all the basic grammar, 
or all the key lexical inventories for reading the NT--or both--in 
the first 100 classroom hours. Once the course designer accepts this 
limitation of scope, it becomes a matter of content selection. Which 
are the truly need-to-know concepts?

With Greek courses aimed at reading competence there is an obvious 
temptation to select and sequence content as dictated by the 
authentic target texts themselves. Here is your somewhat stripped-
down text for lesson one and here are forty footnotes to help you 
figure it out. While selection of content for beginners cannot stray 
very far from the Biblical target language, it does need to be guided 
by such criteria as frequency, simplicity, usefulness, etc.  Students 
need to get a firm grasp of basic forms, structures, and 
articulations before they can appreciate how Biblical writers are 
applying them in nuanced arguments.

In the final analysis, contents should be presented (selected, 
sequenced, and quantified) according to the ongoing learners’ needs 
and the learning process itself, not imposed by any external ordering 
scheme or traditional notions of what absolutely belongs in the first-
year book. I bring this up because there is a parallel thread 
investigating whether current koine grammars reflect 21st-century 
linguistics. The same investigation could well be carried out with 
textbooks as measured by advances in language teaching.

Warren Fulton
Vienna, Austria



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