[B-Greek] Fwd: Porter Beginning Greek Book

Elizabeth Kline kline_dekooning at earthlink.net
Sun Aug 2 23:29:38 EDT 2009


Louis,

We are not that far apart. I agree with a lot of what you have said  
here.


On Aug 2, 2009, at 7:04 PM, Louis Sorenson wrote:

> EK: >>>I think there are more options than SLA and grammar-translate.
>
> LS: What are they? Can you give examples of text-books that you  
> think support these methods? I think it's important all know which  
> books line up with certain pedagogical approaches or at least depart  
> from the standard.
>

I don't like the implication that if we are not totally with Buth &  
SLA then we must be with Mounce/Wallace. That is an over simple view  
of things. I can't give you a list of course packages that represent  
each school of thought. I don't know that much. Things are not that  
clear cut. I asked a while back where David A. Black fits in this  
spectrum and received not a single reply. He teaches both in the USA  
and in Ethiopia. His DVD set is a capture of his lectures in Ethiopia.  
I have a faint recollection that D.A. Black is not anti-linguistic.  
What I have heard about him word of mouth has been fairly positive.  
But I don't have the DVDs.

>
> EK:>>>Regardless of how you start out in beginning  greek, you will  
> at some time need to be able to do grammatical analysis, otherwise  
> you will not be able to interact with 2000 years of exegetical  
> tradition.
>
>
> LS: A six week course using one of the standard exegesis manuals  
> could easily fill the gap. Buth's approach talks about cases,  
> tenses, etc.; (I'm currently going through his grammars).
>
> Exegesis is overrated,

This is not an exegesis list. Your experience in school sounds  
familiar, but it does not represent what I would call exegesis.  I am  
talking about  being able to read works like the ICC, WBC, NIGTC, ...  
and a vast multitude of monographs on NT studies. If you want to use  
this literature you need to be able to deal with syntax and lexical  
semantics. Buth isn't suggesting we skip over this material, he wants  
technical capability combined with fluency. Not one or the other  
(private correspondence earlier today).

I am not anti fluency. But the people I run into who did SLA in high  
shcool and college are very poorly equipped to tackle language as a  
linguist would. They don't even possess the conceptual framework  
needed to begin the process. It is like trying to teach physics to  
someone who didn't take any math. You will never progress beyond first  
base. They don't know enough to even get started.

>

Elizabeth Kline






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