[B-Greek] You Are Smarter Than a Lexicon (?) The beat goes on...

Jeffrey T. Requadt jeffreyrequadt_list at hotmail.com
Fri Jun 4 22:23:15 EDT 2010


My own 29 cents, as an educator (granted, one that hasn't taught anyone else Greek) is that education has moved on without much of the New Testament Greek teaching crowd, from my own experience as a student as well as what I've heard on this list. The idea that some things can only be learned by practically mind-numbing (or maybe not just practically?) repetition/memorization/drill/rote, rather than by conceptual and contextual understanding FIRST, and not through other ways that make sense, is soundly refuted by decades of educational research--both in language learning specifically and learning in general. I just finished helping to facilitate a workshop for my district for elementary teachers. I was reminded that we used to think that for some things, like multiplication combinations (4 x 8, 5 x 9, etc.), the only way to internalize them and become fluent with them was by a lot of drill--see the combination, spit it out. Since then, we've learned--and I've learned to teach children--to have lots of meaningful practice, either with games, or possibly a timed setting, or possibly with some kind of activity, but to be meaningful--thinking about what 4 x 8 means--that there are 4 groups of 8 things, or 4 rows with 8 columns, or adding 8 4 times, etc. The more CONNECTIONS that we make, the more we learn something. Isn't this true of language as well, whether written or oral? The more I read a text in Greek, and the more connections I make with it, and the more I act it out, and the more I rephrase it in English and possibly French (because those are languages I understand), and the more I maybe even draw it, the more I will understand it. We do the same thing with mathematical vocabulary. Rather than tell my third graders that "the product is the answer to a multiplication equation," and have them repeat that several times, and then memorize it, I use the word myself to explain that "product is the word that mathematicians use to say how many of something there is if it's in equal groups" (or something similar) AFTER a need arises for that word, such as when we first start to solve multiplication problems. Then, I USE it repeatedly, and I use it to describe their thinking when they are explaining it to the class, and I expect them to start using it, and pretty soon, guess what happens! My students (the majority of them, anyway), start using the word "product" accurately, both when they understanding in reading and when they use it to describe their own thinking--not because I've made them memorize it, or had them repeat the word and the definition 20 times, but because they've used it meaningfully so many times that now they own it. Just like when they solve 5 x 9 so many times, they start to own it, and they just know that it's 45. Is there a place for repetition, and drill? Yes--but not to learn, rather to build efficiency. I actually do give timed multiplication quizzes, but mostly to see for myself which students own which combinations. I don't use them to teach multiplication or to build fluency. It's just NOT TRUE that some things--anything--HAS to be learned by rote. In fact, I would argue that NOTHING can be meaningfully learned by rote without a good amount of comprehension and contemplation attached to it.
Now, I have never taught a class on any form of Greek. But if I did, I think I would start with some kind of living language method, because that's how we learn language at all. I would also want to look at curriculum that involved real reading--not contrived passages or--even worse--artificial passages, but real ones that involve real, authentic language that was really written by real human beings to be read on its own terms by other human beings. And I would want to use lots of literature that required readers to think, to enjoy, and to deal with the text. Reading and writing really are their own form of language, separate from speaking and listening, but they are language. I think I might be coming at it from a different vantage point that Carl and the other writers on this list, but I sense that many of us are saying the same thing--word analysis and such has its place, but it's no substitute for learning Greek as a language in its own right. I agree with Carl; I don't see how you can really use something you don't understand. It's like if I learned about all the details and mechanics of a car engine (which I haven't) but never actually involved myself in fixing a car or rebuilding an engine. I'm really relying on all the great thinking and fixing that other people have done. What I haven't done is really usefully learned anything.
Once again (and I say this on every post, I think), I have vomited my thinking. Hopefully someone is still reading by this point. If you think I'm crazy, please tell me off-list.
Jeff Requadt
Tucson, AZ

-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of +Fr Patrick B O'Grady
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 6:06 PM
To: Carl Conrad; B-Greek B-Greek
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] You Are Smarter Than a Lexicon (?) The beat goes on...

I desire to weigh in on this thread, if there is any fibre left in it.
I learned Classical and Biblical Greek in the old-fashioned way... lots
of hard work, drill, and memorization. My experience in teaching others
has shown me that NO MATTER WHAT method, the single most important
criterion for success is longevity of effort. It just seems to be that
simple.
Exposure to real Greek from the earliest moment, combined with the flush
of reward the student experiences when (s)he actually *gets it* from
time to time. It's amazing how much difficulty, how many resorts to the
lexicon, etc., MUST be borne by any successful student.
Here's the bad news, as I read it. Computer software tends to suggest
that students can find a short-cut. It just don't work!

On Fri, 04 Jun 2010 19:59:31 -0400, "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
said:
> 
> On Jun 4, 2010, at 6:31 PM, Larry Heflin wrote:
> 
> > I think the chorus is singing a rather cynical tune regarding the motive of the people who offer such tools and also of those who may use them. I just can't bring myself to share the indignation. It's a struggle enough to get people to read the Scriptures in their native language, so if someone has enough interest to dabble in the originals I will not discourage it. It's more likely to lead to something good than bad. Most of the people I know that are motivated enough to take an interest in such tools would not operate under the delusion that they are language experts, nor would they represent themselves as such simply because they do word studies, etc. They tend to recognize and give due respect to what is genuine based on more than the ability to sprinkle a message with a Greek word or two, or the pounding of an interlinear on a pulpit. There always has been and there always will be the dupees and the dupers. Historically, those who present
> > the greatest threat have always been those with genuine skills who harm other experts as well as the sheep. If I may express my own cynicism, I am more cynical of those who walk the hallowed halls of acedemia than of those who built them. And if I might trespass into theology, hell no doubt is full of people fluent in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc, and has no shortage of experts (1 Cor. 1:26-29). Or, maybe this is all just academic.
> 
> I grant that the tone has been cynical: the product promises so much and
> looks too good to be true -- nothing raises suspicions more quickly than
> that.
> 
> I grant too that charlatans are to be found in academia as elsewhere. I
> myself am dismayed when I see opinions being offered by self-proclaimed
> Ph.D's without cogent arguments and convincing evidence. And I
> acknowledge that most congregations know better than to be impressed by
> Greek-word-dropping in sermons. Dupers and dupees are indeed, as Barnum
> acknowledged, "born every minute." 
> 
> My own sour note in this thread has not been triggered so much by this
> particular piece of software being offered for pre-sale as by the trend
> it represents -- the seemingly relentless diminution of expectation and
> desire on the part of seminarians and lay students to acquire solid
> competence in Biblical Greek.
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
---
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek




More information about the B-Greek mailing list