[B-Greek] Classroom metalanguage

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Feb 19 11:45:03 EST 2010


Since ELEFANTES are not on my license, I skipped the other thread.
But I believe in reading literature in the original whenever possible, and
making it possible whenever important.
The only PAXY DERMA for me is the BOYBALOS (Jos. Ant 8.2.4 buffalo)
On another, undiscussed thread, any who would like to present a
Greek pedagogical study (in English or Greek) now have an SBL unit.

But this thread is different from both.

While working on Living Koine Greek 2c, I was able to look over the following
statements in some introductory material and enjoyed the review.

"Why Greek grammar terms?
1. So that in class a teacher may be able to stay in Greek if a
student asks a question about a word form. Grammar category questions
are legitimate for adults and they will want to learn how to deal with
these questions. The more that this is done in the language, the
better.
A word of caution: students and teachers should be aware that normal
language use momentarily ceases whenever discussing grammar terms.
They are doing something that no child ever does when learning a
language. Also, the process of building toward fluency may not be
taking place during such times of analysis. Use sparingly, see point
5.
2. The Greek terms all have a meaning in Greek and fit the Greek
system. They are real Greek words, like παρατατική which means
'extending, stretching out'. And ὀρθή which means upright, correct.
And μετοχή sharing, participating (in both the 'verb world' and
'adjective world').
3. Many English grammar terms do not have any meaning in everyday
English. "Accusative" means nothing in everyday English. It is only an
otherwise empty, English grammar label, a transcription of a Latin
accusativus, which itself was a translation of the Greek αἰτιατική.
4. The Greek terms, through their difficulty and newness, also remind
a user that the naming of a grammatical category is a not part of a
normal communication process. The English name of a category does not
usually help a person in language learning. It is not what language
users think about when using a language. In order to use a grammar
term in any language, a language user must always stop communicating
for a moment, think about the form, perform a quick analysis, and then
apply a name to the category. At least, when and if a language learner
does that, they may as well be practicing Greek.
5. Finally, the foreignness of the terms reminds the student and
teacher not to multiply or dwell on this analytical activity.
Languages are best learned through using the language as widely and
rapidly as possible."


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



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