[B-Greek] Reading Greek improvements

R Yochanan Bitan Buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Fri May 28 10:04:48 EDT 2004


ANNA CAIREIN, 

EUCOMAI SE EUODOUSQAI

 

OK, I' curious  

KALWS, EN TAKSEI, FILOPEUQHS WN EUKAIRW AKOUEIN PLEION.

 

>I too live in Armidale, and I used to teach Greek at UNE. 
>(I myself don't like the Reading Greek course, but everyone 
>else seems to sing its praises!)

 

I am probably able to agree 

EPI TO EIKOS DUNAMAI OMOLOGEIN.

BOULHi UMIN PLEION TI GRAPSAI?

 

EGWGE . For my part, I like the idea of reading one's way into a language,
so did WHD 

Rouse a century ago. In that sense the JACT book methodology might be
commended. 

But the JACT Reading Greek would seem to have too dense a new vocabulary for
new 

students. Stephen Krashen's principle of "comprehensible imput" (i+1) allows
for a diffuse, 

multileveled complexity of input to surround a student, but the whole needs
to stay within the 

bounds of 'comprehensible', in broad strokes. I will present one of his
examples below.

 

Krashen 1983 The Natural Approach, Language Acquisition in the Classroom,
p132 

(quoting Grittner 1977) gives the following as "too much":

 

            Suddenly the flangel gleeped out of the simmel and snatched an

            Unsuspecting brill from the midst of his fribbeling companions.

 

On the other hand, the following intuitively works:

 

            Suddenly the flangel swooped out of the sky and snatched an

            Unsuspecting spider monkey from the midst of his fribbeling
companions.

 

We can already picture the mysterious "flangel" and probably don't need to
know what 

fribbeling means. A flangel flies or jumps or swings in a land where spider
monkies

live. Flangels are probably bad news for spider monkies.

 

In any case, I am curious to know your own reservations of JACT, even if in
the 

opposite direction. 

 

Bottom line is that teachers of most languages want students to be able to
read 

extensive literature for enjoyment after several hundred hours of language
study.

 

ERRWSO

 

Randall Buth

 

Randall Buth, PhD

Director, Biblical Language Center

www.biblicalulpan.org

and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel

Hebrew University, Rothberg International School

ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il

 




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