[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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