[B-Greek] grammar-translation
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Aug 4 11:30:07 EDT 2009
On Aug 4, 2009, at 10:59 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>
> Last night I had an opportunity to view samples of the DVDs from D.A.
> Black's intro class. I watched portions of the first session and
> portions of session 24 on the imperative . I know know why this method
> of teaching is called grammar-translation. Transaltion is a central
> feature of the discussion. Every thing is explained by looking at
> translation alternatives. I had never see this method in action
> before. Well perhaps I have, once. I think a while back I watched
> something by Mounce on his web site.
It is ,alas -- my reaction, shared, I suspect by very few --, the
wave of the future in Biblical Greek pedagogy -- less so in Classical
Greek pedagogy. There is no pretense of such fool notions as "thinking
in Greek." Rather, it is: Parse, decode, and use the glosses to
convert to woodenly-literal English, somewhat like an attempt to
describe the taste of a cucumber or broccoli that one has only
sniffed. Granted, this is a gross exaggeration, but there is, I think,
more than a little truth in it.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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