[B-Greek] online Greek texbook and classes - help and advice sought
susan at read-the-bible.org
susan at read-the-bible.org
Tue Apr 12 10:00:02 EDT 2011
Hi Shirley -- how exciting! I've just quickly dashed through the first
couple of documents on your page, and think you're on a wonderful path.
Great!
A quick note on fonts -- I started off with online Greek teaching
10 years ago using SPIONIC, tried briefly switching to unicode, then
switched again to bwgrkl (the by-then open-to-the-public BibleWorks
font).
The trouble I had with unicode was that it wasn't only old-dog I that
had to learn the new trick, but my students as well. I'm adjunct
faculty, and I'm the only one doing anything other than typing his/her
own stuff using Greek, so tech support from the schools has been nil. I
(a) don't know and (b) have no way to find out how to help the students
type in unicode, especially within the courseware itself - each platform
(Blackboard, Moodle, etc) has its own quirks. I could tell you
stories... and often when a school upgrades its platform, new quirks
emerge, of various sorts. Also I'm an old PC person with no realistic
way to learn how Macs do their thing -- I know, I know, everyone says
Macs are easier, but I've spent more time in my online teaching hassling
with Mac tech issues of my few Mac using students than with all my many
PC folks combined.
My attempts to use unicode were a disaster --
it's *very* important to me that my online students be able to type in
Greek, both for assignments that they submit individually, and in the
online discussion forums. The other advantage of bwgrkl is that I can
cut-and-paste directly from BibleWorks. When a student asks about some
grammar point, I can answer the question (in the online discussion
forum) and quickly and easily find a few biblical instances of whatever
it is, and post them without having to type it all in myself. The
commmon instructor complaint about all online teaching is that it takes
so much instructor time; any little way to save time is quite a gift.
Also some of my students have old technology that doesn't appear to
accommodate unicode, or if it does we could never get it to work. Again,
no tech support. If you have a good tech person who's willing & able to
understand what-all using another alphabet online entails, particularly
in your specific coursearer, and who will help your students get going,
all of these technical issues may well disappear. Then again, since you
asked for unicode help here on b-greek rather than from your
institution,
maybe you're in a boat similar to mine.
Another thing about fonts -- if you're going to post pdfs on the
internet, I urge you to embed the fonts, so your readers don't have to
have the fonts on their own computers. I don't know whether you did
that or not on what you've posted -- I have SPIONIC installed -- in your
Chapter 1 alphabet table, your capital Kappa appears as a strange symbol
on my screen - I can email you a screenprint if you're interested.
a small typo I noticed, p. 3 of chapter 2 near the top - Ab-rah-ARM
rather than Ab-rah-AHM.
As for reading and speaking aloud --
I didn't find the bit that Randall quoted in my quick scan through the
first 3 pdfs:
> It is IMPOSSIBLE to develop fluency or comprehension if we do not
> hear a language, and the main way online students get to hear a
> language is by speaking it themselves.
I agree with Randall that reading aloud alone doesn't "work" -- but I've
personally not found any way to even come close, in my online teaching,
to providing "an opportunity to rapidly and continuously interact in the
language at times." There are online conferencing tools available, but
with 20+ students per term and many at a distance without adequate
technology, I don't see that happening in my classes.
At a bare minimum, though, you should provide (or link to) some sort of
audio recordings, and provide some way for students to get feedback from
you on their pronunciation. I don't have any tried-and-true ways to
suggest; this next academic year I'm planning to require either
student-recorded mp3s or phone calls a couple of times through the term
(I always offer to initiate the phone call so students (especially in
other
countries don't have to pay). In the past I've offered such feedback
as an option, and perhaps 5-10% of all students have availed themselves.
I've learned through experience that my exhortations alone, to listen,
read along out loud, read everything out loud -- don't work. I find
this out when I finally have desperate students on the phone for help
with grammar halfway through Greek I, and their ability to sound out
words accurately (let alone read a whole sentence smoothly) is... not
very well developed. It's a rare student who doesn't need a stick in
addition to the carrot....
Sorry this has gotten so long. Over the summer I'm hoping to revise my
own pdfs and audio recordings, that I use with Croy. I've bookmarked
your page and expect I'll be checking in with it over the coming year. I
like your approach.
Grace and peace of the Lord to you all --
Susan Jeffers
Online Intro NT Greek Adjunct to many
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