[B-Greek] Best Practices for Teaching/Learning Greek

Alex Poulos apviper at gmail.com
Thu May 27 14:41:31 EDT 2010


As a person self studying Greek, I'm quite interested to see everyone's
thoughts.  I will say that I've found composition tremendously useful
lately.  I've been reading through the Psalms in Greek and then writing
reflections and prayers as I go (in Greek).  This has helped me out quite a
bit, and has also been extremely edifying spiritually.  It often causes me
to look up a form I don't know, so I'm engaging with the grammar a lot
better than I do when I'm simply reading.  This might be a good strategy for
your distance learners.  Short, simple reflections on biblical passages
would make good practice.

Note that I signed up for the online Greek Composition class that was
mentioned here a few months ago, but had to drop out because of time!
Still, I think it's a valuable component.

Grace and peace,

Alex Poulos
Senior - Computer Science
NC State University

On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Louis Sorenson <llsorenson at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Hello all,
>
> After teaching a class trying some living language methodologies for
> ancient Greek (NT), I have a few questions which I am asking myself. I also
> have self-study students in mind and those who may be remote-study students.
> Many of these topics have been touched on here or there in the b-Greek
> emails and some directly in Buth's and Rico's books from their persepctives.
> But putting them into a list helps me realize I still have a lot of
> questions.
>
> The questions are broken down into the following categories:
>
> BEST PRACTICES FOR SELF-STUDY STUDENTS
> USING LIVING LANGUAGE METHODOLOGIES
> COMPOSITION AND TRANSLATION AND READING
> INCORPORATION OF LIVING LANGUAGE METHODOLOGIES INTO TRADITIONAL CLASSES
> ACCEPTANCE OF LIVING LANGUAGE METHODOLOGIES
>
> BEST PRACTICES FOR SELF-STUDY/Remote STUDENTS
> 1. How does the self-study get  significant time in video?  Should they
> watch supplemental videos, watch class videos posted by others? Can one-way
> videos (not Skype where there is interaction) be of any value?
> 2. How does the self-study get  significant time response to real-life
> question/answer methods rather than replying to a stock question where the
> answer is in an answer key?
> 3. How important is accountability? How does the self-study student make
> themselves acheive and do the work? They get no grade, pay no fees,
> etc. Would a club membership (like on Schole) with kind of attainment
> badge (=skill status) be of value and encouragement?
>
> USING LIVING LANGUAGE METHODOLOGIES
> 4. To what extent do living language methods make a difference in
> increasing understanding and accelerating the learning curve?
> 5.  How much time does one need when using aural/visual learning
> methodologies compared to non-aural traditional methods? More, less, or the
> same?
> 6. Is there an age-appropriate limit for living language methods?  Older
> adults needing the systematic explanation of phrases and younger
> students more able to adapt (have less need) of grammatical explanations
>  and more interested in using a language?
> 7. When should grammar be studied, concurrently or
> subsequentially?  Should grammar be studied systematically or ad hoc as in
> inductive methods?
> 8. What amount of non-Biblical words should be included?
> 9. How and when to wean a student off of speaking/hearing into reading or
> if reading
>  was always a part, how and when to discontinue such methods (or is
> listening kept and not speaking?)
>
> COMPOSITION AND TRANSLATION AND READING
> 10.  What type of composition methods are best, phrases, whole sentences,
> fill in the blanks, ktl?
> 11.  Does translating into English have more, less or equal value from
> composing into Greek?
> 12.  How does a self-study student know their translation/composition is
> OK?
> 13.  At what point are students expected to get longer sentences?  Is there
>  value in having longer involved sentences, even though they may be
> simple?
> 14.  Does reading long passages (a story like Athenaze or JACT) give more
> to the student than traditional independent sentence based grammars?
>
>
> INCORPORATION OF LIVING LANGUAGE METHODOLOGIES INTO TRADITIONAL CLASSES
> 15.  Is it possible to take a grammar like Mounce, Croy, or story based
> grammars such as Athenaze, JACT, and Let's Study Greek (Hale) and use
> living language methods with it?  Has anyone tried this?
> 16.  Could a supplemental LLM class in addition to a traditional weekly
> class be more value?  (e.g. 3 classes a week, one with LLM methods
> covering the same material as the other two lessons which are taught the
>  standard way) versus 3 traditional classes a week?
>
>
> ACCEPTANCE OF LIVING LANGUAGE METHODOLOGIES
> 17.  What level of acceptance of ancient Greek living language
> methodologies will be accepted by institutions of higher learning and
> accreditation? Will demonstration of numerous students' capabilities (such
> as passing a Greek Exam) validate such methodologies, or will they be
> relegated to the shadows for the foreseeable future?
> 18.   Do those decision makers in such institutions have any available
> criteria or standards by which to judge the success of ancient Greek LLM
> pedagogies?
>
> Any answers or even more questions would be appreciated. Sometimes just
> reading through a list of such questions will get the mind to re-evaluate
> how they would like to learn/teach.
>
> Louis Sorenson
>
>
>
>
>
>
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