[B-Greek] Funk and 'monitors'

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Sun Jun 3 06:04:52 EDT 2007


> W.Funk appears to have been under the influence of structuralism but
he manifests this somewhat differently than E.V.N.Goetchius. Like
Goetchius, his pedagogy is dependent on English syntax as a point of
departure with the assumption that the student can comprehend a
simplified analysis of English grammar. That assumption might have
been a safe one fifty years ago but is certainly isn't a safe one now.
Elizabeth Kline>

Thank you for the broader linguistic perspective.  I appreciate many
of the mnemonic rules of thumb that Funk provides for students and
giving a place to the grammar on the internet would be a poistivie
contribution. In addition, as you raise grammar questions, the broader
linguistic perspective must also ask what do these mnemonic rules do,
not to mention the comparisons with English grammar?

Rules of thumb help build what has been called a 'monitor'. A monitor
is an analytical scaffolding around a language that language users use
for checking their input/output. It is quite useful and regularly used
when spelling or writing, but it can hide the real language learning
process if users equate 'monitor building' with learning the language.

To give an example from Hebrew, where no Greek turf needs defending:
BibHebrew pedagogies tend to use analysis in order to introduce the
language, e.g., by teaching students how to take roots and build
verbs, or take words and extract roots. Some modern Hebrew courses do
something something. However, Israeli children cannot perform such
tasks until they are teenagers. They know how to say HIGGID and
YAGGID, but don't know what its root is. That is an analytical skill
that is outside the "core loops" of the language itself. In the end
such methodologies are part of a discredited non/pre-theory called
grammar-translation within second language acquisition studies.

(NB: if a person only wants a monitor, then grammar-translation is OK,
it's just that a monitor will forever leave a person outside the
language. Such partial goals are certainly justified where someone is
not intrinsincally interested in the literature of the language but
only needs certain decoding skills àla graduate reading requirements.
But I have the distinct feeling that many on this list are hoping for
something deeper, and for those they might find useful a "truth in
advertising label" stating that 'grammar-translation' does not lead to
internalization.)

ERRWSQE
Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
שלום לכם וברכות
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com


More information about the B-Greek mailing list