[B-Greek] relative value of re-reading the Greek NT versus following the advice of Conrad and Buth

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Mar 3 08:30:12 EST 2008


I suppose that it would be fitting to respond to a thread with my name in it.
John Sanders recent post is delightful and provides a nice jumping off
point. Let me add that I think that Carl and I agree that reading massively
outside the NT is a must. I suppose my 'cHiddush' is to insist on speaking
the language. and I think that Carl would agree with me, at least
in an idealistic setting.

John egrapse
>I may be in error here, as I have never been in a seminary language class,
but it appears that what is offered as Greek language instruction may really
be a course in linguistics with Koine Greek as the example language.

[RB] Great line. there are times when parody hits the nail on the head.

[JS]>From personal observation, and again I may be in error, it appears to me
that about 350 hours of active engagement with a language is sufficient to
put an individual into the class "2" or even a "2+" level.  Another 450
hours into a "3-" level.  What does not count as active engagement is
reading a textbook, memorizing paradigms, learning linguistic jargon, and
parsing sentences.  These things may be necessary, but they will not create
fluency.

[RB] Yes, 'active engagement is what counts. that is, using the language
for real communication.
On the scale numbers, things may have changed.
The US State Dept scale that I knew in the 70's
and 80's was 0-5, with 5 being native, or 'near native'. directions in
a taxi were '1', wider functional needs '2', minimal functional fluency '3',
fluency to function professionally '4'.

>What will create fluency is reading extended passages, memorizing blocks of
speech, actively listening to spoken passages, writing or speaking sentences
of your own.

[RB] Yes, though I would change "writing OR speaking"
to writing AND speaking, with the initial focus on speaking.
Writing is a very reflective skill, even in a mother-tongue,
and is somewhat separate from fluency.
Back to the bigger question, one may simply add

'by their fruit you will know them'.

The rest is commentary.

In this case, the fruit of the methods will make
clear what works. As John points out, by 800 hours of work in a
language one would expect to start approaching some kind of minimal
functionality. for sake of argument, we can round off to 1000. In a
welltaught, classroom, language program, one would expect something like
this in a modern language between the 16 to 30 credit stage. (1 university
credit equals 15 classroom hours, so this would be saying between 240-450
classroom hours, which also assumes 360-675 homework hours.
(On paper it would be at least 480 to 900 homework hours, but I find that
students find ways to whittle things down.)
So, does 'reading only' produce this? No.
Do any current seminary programs of 16-30 credits produce
anything resembling minimal fluency? No. Not even close. From a Second
Language Acquisition perspective, one can say that higher education is not
serious about internalizing a 'biblical' langauge.
We do have teachers who could write about what they did last week
in ancient Greek. That is not a bad skill. But it is not the same
thing as having
it available to come out of one's mouth. This latter is a higher level of
internalization, yet one that is not reached with a PhD. So if one applies
'by their fruit you will know them'
to seminary Greek instruction, all that I can add is
O EXWN WTA AKOYEIN AKOYETW.

And the question of "relative value of re-reading the Greek NT versus
following the advice of Conrad and Buth" becomes clear. If one wants
to read the GNT within a Greek framework, they MUST read outside
the GNT and they MUST use the language in rapid communication.

Nothing else would work for someone would wanted to read the
NIV NT in English. Nor would it work differently in Greek.

The question that remains is a percentage of how much 'outside time'
to invest. And everyone's needs and resources will lead to a long
incremental scale on this. Like buying a car, the larger the
payments the sooner one takes full possession. There is no 'right'
answer, but we have a NOYQESIAN from SLA (2nd-lang-Acquis
studies), there are ways to slow the process down (!) or ensure
that a student never arrives. Current practice does what SLA
predicts will slow down or prevent (!) internalization.
In other words, the status quo needs to
be radically changed, both for efficiency's sake towards short term
goals and for the sake of common-sense long term goals.

NAI, from the beginning  rapid communication is needed.
And exposure to the GNT is needed.
OYK ESTIN ALLH ODOS.
TO ERWTHMA ESTIN POTE ARKSOMEQA?

ERRWSQE

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


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