[B-Greek] Where is Grammar-translation supported?
Randall Buth
randallbuth at gmail.com
Fri Apr 8 04:27:02 EDT 2011
The discussion seem on track and can lead to considering where the
field would like to go and how best to get there.
Gary's posts have not yet shown up on b-Greek when I check directly,
but he has cc'd me and b-Greek is on the address list, so I will cite
some of his post along with comment. (Perhaps Gary should try
<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org> lower case?)
Gary egrapse
>The particular Ellis in question is Rod Ellis.
He was my first guess. There is also a Nick Ellis writing in the
field. One of them has a huge 'hanbook' on SLA (unfortunately not on
my shelf--I should probably get a copy). And I have a friend Nick
Ellis currently finishing a PhD in NT at Oxford who is interested in
SLA.
Back to Rod, he has an article accessible on the web:
Principles of Instructed Language Learning
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/sept_05_re.pdf
You might enjoy the following statements:
"Principle 1: Instruction needs to ensure that learners develop both a rich
repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule-based competence. ...
Principle 2: Instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly
on meaning. . . .
The opportunity to focus on pragmatic meaning [real acts of communication
--RB] is important for a number of reasons:
1. In the eyes of many theorists (e.g. Prabhu 1987; Long 1996) , only when
learners are engaged in decoding and encoding messages in the context of
actual acts of communication are the conditions created for
acquisition to take place.
2. To develop true fluency in an L2, learners must have opportunities to
create pragmatic meaning (DeKeyser, 1998).
3. Engaging learners in activities where they are focused on creating
pragmatic meaning is intrinsically motivating. . . .
theorists do so not just because they see this as a means of activating the
linguistic resources that have been developed by other means, but because
they see it as the principal means by which the linguistic resources
themselves are created. This is the theoretical position that has informed
many highly successful immersion education programmes around the world
(see Johnson and Swain, 1997). However, in advocating this principle, I do
NOT wish to suggest that instruction needs to be directed EXCLUSIVELY
at providing learners with opportunities to create pragmatic meaning, only
that, to be effective, instruction must include such opportunities and that,
ideally, over an ENTIRE CURRICULUM, they should be PREDOMINANT."
Emphasis mine at the end. You may note that the corrolary of sub-point 2
is that grammar-translation cannot develop true fluency. And continuing with
Rod's principles for sake of fulness:
"Principle 3: Instruction needs to ensure that learners also focus on form.
[this is where 'grammar' enters the curriculum--RB]
Principle 4: Instruction needs to be predominantly directed at developing
implicit knowledge of the L2 while not neglecting explicit knowledge.
... there is consensus that learners need the opportunity to
participate in communicative activity to develop implicit knowledge.
Thus, communicative
tasks need to play a central role in instruction directed at implicit
knowledge. ...
Principle 5: Instruction needs to take into account the learner’s ‘built-in
syllabus’."
The article is a nice summary of what is discussed in the field.
Gary also mentioned mentioned three names:
> Buttacavoli (2004), Munnerlyn (1996), and Taylor (2006)
I only know the last two personally. Ross Munnerlyn and I met at an ETS in
2004 or 2005(?). He was very excited about what we (BLC) were doing,
this was explicitly communicated by his brother, and Ross wanted to
collaborate on setting something up that could promote the field.
Unfortunately, he passed away of an early heart attack (2006?) I see
his brother Ford at SBL regularly. Alana's article is from her dissertation
work. She is currently a member of the ALBL steering committee (SBL),
though she has not been able to visit SBL the past two years. She is young
and recently finished her degree work so I expect to see some good things
coming from her.
MARKOS EGRAPSE
[RB]:
>> Can they or do they lead to internalization of ANY language?>
>
Markos:
> "Lead" is too strong a word, but yes, they can. Wilamowitz said that to
> make the ancients speak, we must feed them with our blood. This is the
> reason why people on B-Greek think so highly of Mounce and Croy and
> Machen and JACT and Jeremy Duff and Buth. Terry Cook even used the
> word love.
I would say 'No, they can't'. Please note that the 'they' referred to standard,
NT pedagogical grammars, something that can only be catagorized as
fairly classic examples of 'grammar-translation'. And our current field is
the result. It does not include ellis' explicit knowledge within a
communicative framework.
Or--
maybe 'lead' is too weak. Unfortunately, we don't have real, theory neutral,
standardized language assessment in ancient languages. We have that
in modern languages. I know of no language learning theorist who thinks
that pure grammar-translation can lead to true fluency of a language. The
opposite is true, using a language communicatively is universallly
acknowledged to lead to fluency. With a caveat: the field wrestles with
phenomena like 'plateau'-ing, where a language learner/user will fossilize
at a particular level. We've all met twenty-year immigrants who are near-
native English speakers and twenty-year immigrants whose English is
'challenging'. And the field is certainly in a continual flux about the best
recipe(s) for SecondLanguageAcquisition. E.g., even Stephen Krashen,
one of the primary advocates of almost pure 'emergant' positions of
SLA, gives a high value to free, extended reading. But this is on a
platform where the person is also able to follow natural speech at natural
speeds. Krashen cannot be pulled out of context to support current
NT grammar approaches. He would be appalled to see what passes for
our current pedagogy in the NT Greek field.
As for Willamovitz, he is one of the last, great, legendary, Greek savants.
We've also mentioned onlist names like Heinrich Schliemann, discover of
Troy, who would write to himself in Greek, memorized vast passages of
classical authors, and spoke several modern languages, including modern
Greek. WHD Rouse, was a strong advocate of running a classroom in
Greek, from the beginning, and appears to have been favorably influenced
by Francois Gouin, the Latinist who declared that his Latin methodology
was incapable of handling real languages. Gouin then invented the 'Series
Method', which has a lot of overlap with most 'immersion' programs to
this day.
We would like to see all of this further elucidated, tested, applied, and
re-tested within the field of Koine Greek studies. That is why the
Applied Linguistics for Biblical Languages Group was started in SBL
and ETS.
A couple rules of thumb that could generate positive contributions and
further discussion:
"let's major on what we know works, and avoid what we know doesn't work."
"Humans use a language in order to learn a language."
Then we can discuss where the bar should be set
and how to get there.
ERRWSQE
Randall Buth
> ________________________________
> From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
> To: B Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Thu, April 7, 2011 10:53:25 AM
> Subject: [B-Greek] Where is Grammar-translation supported?
>
> I visited b-greek today and found a long thread on a frequent topic,
> comparing 'pedagogical grammars'.
> But there was not a word about how to justify such an approach for
> our field of studies.
>
> It wouldn't hurt to ask:
> Are these pedagogies supported through any kind of
> psycholinguistic or pedagogical research? Can they or do they
> lead to internalization of ANY language? I leave these as open
> questions, though some may have read them as rhetorical
> questions.
>
> You are all cordially invited to the Applied Lingiustics for
> Biblical Languages Session at SBL this coming November. It's
> in San Francisco, on the far side for those visiting from the other
> side of the Atlantic. But a tour of Napa, Sonoma, Mendecino, and
> Alexander valleys may enhance your trip.
>
> James Asher, originator of 'Total Physical Response' will be
> discussing "Learning Languages in the 21st Century-Part 1" and
> "Learning Languages in the 21st Century-Part 2" (60 minutes total).
> He has quite a bit to say about tests and experimental data
> on language learning over the past 40 years. One provocative
> piece from his abstracts:
>
> "The noble goal of the 20th century was to acquire a second language.
> The effort was not a stunning success since less than five percent of
> students actually achieved fluency in another language. Given the
> explosion of valuable information in the last decade or two about the
> right hemisphere of the brain, a realistic goal in the 21st century is
> fluency in multiple languages. . . . To understand how the brain works
> in rapid learning of multiple languages at the same time, please read
> my book: Learning Another Language Through Actions"
>
> Let's keep an open mind about where 'the bar may be set' in the
> future and think about ways to prepare the field, that means us, too,
> for the opportunities.
>
> ERRWSQE
>
> Randall Buth
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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