Stephen Hughes wrote:For most people, I don't think it is a question of "putting off" a type of learning. When I started, I never imagined there could be anything other than Strong's and a concordance. Then I tried some other methods. All have advantages and disadvantages. It is a question of what is available and manageable in whatever learning and life situation a student finds themselves in. In my case, I don't see that I have "put.. off" really learning till my thirty-"third year". It is just that I haven't had opportunity to do that till now.
This is all very helpful. I think Stephen's point is too often and too much ignored. Both for teachers and for learners it is often a question of: What is available? What is doable? What is affordable? And, for both learners and teachers, WHAT WILL GET MEASURABLE / DESIRABLE RESULTS AND NOT WASTE MY TIME / GET ME FIRED?
I also think the idea of integrating real language training with the typical approach has not received enough attention. If its a choice between this or that, for all kinds of reasons THIS will be the selection. Affordable, well planned, and "just open the package and add water" materials are needed, and they will quickly become the biggest advocates of the method.
Getting back to Stephen's point, when I first set out to learn Greek (considerably later than my "thirty-third year"), the Mounce textbook seemed to 'own the world' of teaching / learning Koine Greek. It didn't take me very long to discover where the crowd was going to get intro Greek learning materials. Mounce is also very well put together as teaching learning material, and I still think it has much to recommend it as a reasonable plan of progress through the basics of Koine Greek.
Where is the comparable communicative material which can be used in tandem? What I mean by that is two things: 1) where are the ready made and well designed and easily usable, and reasonably priced materials which can be integrated easily with a 'typical' approach, and 2) WHERE ARE THEY? They are not visible when prospective learners and teachers go searching.
I am certain that much of this is simply my ignorance - but I think that's Stephen's point, and mine. The few real language exercises I did this year were, as I said, fashioned in imitation of Paul's approach, and the dialogues I developed myself - an activity I would much rather leave to others!
Paul Nitz wrote:I've been meaning to get around to revising our wiki phrasebook to show more classroom language like this. If anyone has something to add, note that the classroom language is on a separate tab from the master list.
Paul, can I ask you what your overall Greek program looks like (ie outcomes - what do they end up with), how much time you have with your students on, say, a weekly basis, and what the mix of grammar / communicative language is?