Re: recommendation

From: Jay Adkins (JAdkins264@aol.com)
Date: Wed Apr 07 1999 - 05:20:27 EDT


 Albert Lukaszewski writes:

<<<Body: The first round of Summers' NT Greek was a good introductory
grammar;
however, the recent update is, IMHO, poorly done. I used it last year to
teach Greek and my class found more errors in the text and the workbook
than I was able to keep track of -- even simple copy errors from the
former
edition!

My experience with the 8 case system was that my class became confused
about the extra three early on -- i.e., too early an introduction to
syntax
on too little a grammatical base. I had to switch to the 5 case system and
tell them not to worry about the other three -- to learn them as
syntactical functions of 3 of the 5 cases.

Gradually I came to subsidize Summers' work with that of Machen and the
class turned out fine, but, sad to say, I lost a lot of people -- not only
mentally but attendance-wise -- because of the confusion and errors in the
new edition. If you have to use it, I would strongly recommend subsidizing
it from other grammars like Machen, et al.>>>>

While I must concur there are numerous mistakes in the text, they can be
pointed out beforehand so as not to confuse the student, so this is really
not a major concern to me. Although it is granted the publisher should
have done a better job of editing.

I think the choice of using this grammar is based on the acceptance or
rejection of the philosophy behind the use of the 8 case system based on
function or the 5 case system based on form. When I used the text for the
first time myself as a student and now that I have used it as a teacher, my
thoughts are the same. It is the best approach. I noted in my first
response that there would be those that disagreed, but I still think that
it is helpful to early on to introduce the importance of context and
discussing the use of prepositions when teaching/learning Greek. Spending
some time on the development of the language gives the student a better
appreciation of the historical use of Koine Greek and this approach almost
requires that the teacher do just that. Plus, an early understanding that
not all genitives are alike seems to me to be a good thing, and I don't
think that choosing 8 cases over 30 or 40 is a bad thing. A.T. Robertson's
system may not be perfect, but I don't think it is bad when used the way he
intended it.

As to the use of other grammars, I again concur that is always useful, if
for no other reason, different writers will chose different terms and
illustrations to explain the same basic concept.

I must admit to not using the workbook, I only reviewed it. I chose to
prepare my own additional assignments based on the text and vocabulary of 1
John so as to prepare my students to be able to read and translate it prior
to the end of the class.

Also I am not teaching at the seminary level. Each summer I teach
interested teenagers and college students who are generally exceptional
students to begin with. They have no other distractions during the summer,
so they have plenty of time to devote to this study. Additionally they
are motivated by a love of God's Word and not a requirement for some
degree, so drop out rate is nonexistent for them.

I would be interested in what others think of using the two different case
systems based on form or function for teaching first year students.
Jay Adkins

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:22 EDT