[B-Greek] Dartmouth-Russias-Biblical Language Center-Galilee-2010

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Jun 8 13:50:41 EDT 2009


KARLOS EGRAPSE
> Have you ever observed the Dartmouth-Rassias method at work in the
modern college classroom? The method was originally developed to help
kids quickly acquire conversational ability in the language of the
country they're going to and to acquaint them as thoroughly as
possible in the culture of the people. Where it's been employed in
classrooms, it has revolutionized the teaching of modern languages. So
why not an ancient language?
>

I'm glad that Carl mentioned the Rassias method. I've never been to
Dartmouth but have heard of the method. These are intensive live-in
immersion sessions spread out over 10 days, and with multiple teachers
and small group and large group dynamics. It is especially encouraging
to us in light of what we are preposing for April 2010.

For sometime we've been asking ourselves how we can put together
something attractive, reasonably short, yet efficient and productive for
Greek teachers and post-beginning students who would like an immersion
experience. We've been experimenting with weekends in the Galilee where
several of us speak Greek-only for 3-4 days. This has led to putting together
a program for 31 March 2010 to 11 April 2010 in the Galilee. Participants
would speak Greek from breakfast to bedtime, the gospels would be read
and discussed in the light of the historical seeting of the Lake of
Genneseret, some pedagogical fluency drilling would take place and the
whole package limited to ten full working days.

We came to the conclusion that this is doable and desirable. It's not up
on our website yet, but it should be within a couple of weeks, as soon as
costs are finalized. It was very encouraging to find out that Dartmouth
has been running 10-day immersion seminars for years, so the idea
is not 'off the wall'. We just need to limit persons participating and make
sure that we have about 4 teachers for a group of about 20. It looks
like a 'go'.

For us (Biblical Language Center) 2010 is going to have two thematic
intermediate programs, the Spring just mentioned with a 10-day full
immersion, and then a summer "Jesus in Jerusalem According to
John". This later will be a semi-immersion: organized half-day
immersion classrooms with half-day free/study time and occasional
field trips to Jerusalem.

ERRWSO
IWANHS

(we do encourage people to take on a Greek name. It may help
people more easily take on new roles in language learning situations.)



-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life



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