[B-Greek] Fwd: The BANE of Biblical Greek Pedagogy

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Feb 23 06:19:57 EST 2011


I think this was intended for the whole list rather than for me personally.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Rob McConeghy <robmcc1 at cox.net>
> Date: February 23, 2011 6:14:21 AM EST
> To: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] The BANE of Biblical Greek Pedagogy
> Reply-To: robmcc1 at cox.net
> 
> Gerda Seligson's 1996 textbook "Greek for Reading" applies an approach similar to Hale's to reading although based a bit more on modern linguistic theory. I haven't actually tried using the book though.
> The full use of the technique tends to be rather confusing and very time-consuming in a classroom situation.
> I don't think there are many serious teachers these days who use the old fashioned "hunt for the verb" approach any more and most texts do not advise it.
> 
> Closed book listening comprehension exercises are best for forcing students to understand Greek or Latin in original order. You can't look ahead and you have to make sense of things as they come along.
> 
> 
> On 2/23/2011 3:56 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:
>> 
>> On Feb 23, 2011, at 1:27 AM, Paul D. Nitz wrote:
>> 
>>> Alastair,
>>> 
>>> My thoughts exactly, as you'll see in my nearly identical post.
>>> 
>>> Has anyone else read Hale's old essay on teaching Latin?  I've wondered if his approach might work.  Details and my own précis on the essay are below:
>>> 
>>> The Art of Reading Latin:  How to Teach It
>>> William Gardner Hale, professor of Latin in Cornell University
>>> 
>>> Boston:  Ginn & Co., 1887
>>> 
>>> file:///C:/Users/Paul/Desktop/GREEK%20PRIMERS/The%20Art%20of%20Reading%20Latin.htm
>> There was a brief discussion of Hale's treatise about three years ago:
>> 
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-greek/2008-March/045996.html
>> 
>> Carl W. Conrad
>> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>> 
>>> WG Hale encourages that the student suspend interpretation until a sentence is complete.  With first year university students (prep school boys who have had some years of Latin) he would take a couple sentences of an authentic ancient Latin text and read it orally.  He establishes a pattern of walking through the sentences word by word, considering all possibilities for each word and suspending conclusions until the full thought is complete.   He discourages hunting and pecking for predicate, subject, main verb, etc.  He required memorization and recitation of short texts.  He would orally ask students to generate correct forms.  E.g.
>>> 
>>> "How, in Latin, can you present to my mind a queen as acting upon somebody?" By saying regina.  "How a girl as being acted upon?"  By saying puellam. "How a clerk?"  By saying scribam.  "How a letter?"  By saying epistulam. "Now put before me a queen as acting, and a girl as being acted upon." Regina puellam. "
>>> 
>>> With these and other strategies, he said that students were able to "read" the Latin and enjoy it as literature, rather than painstakingly rearranging the Latin according to English thought.
>>> 
>>> PD Nitz
>> ---
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>> 


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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