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Sheltering Vocabulary: re-sequencing the Greek reading experience for late-stage beginners

Sheltering Vocabulary: re-sequencing the Greek reading experience for late-stage beginners. Seumas Macdonald St. Cyril’s Theological College. Facilitating Greek acquisition. Attempting to implement research-led, data-driven Greek pedagogy

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Sheltering Vocabulary: re-sequencing the Greek reading experience for late-stage beginners

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  1. Sheltering Vocabulary: re-sequencing the Greek reading experience for late-stage beginners Seumas Macdonald St. Cyril’s Theological College

  2. Facilitating Greek acquisition • Attempting to implement research-led, data-driven Greek pedagogy • Within the context of online, asynchronous instruction

  3. Theoretical Framework: SLA • The field of SLA: How do people learn a second (post-native) language? • Largely ignored and unapplied in language instruction in theological colleges (and classics departments).

  4. Theoretical Framework: SLA Language acquisition vs. Language learning Explicit vs. Implicit learning. Is our outcome students who know Greek, or students who know about Greek?

  5. Theoretical Framework: SLA Developmental Orders • Stage 1: negation external to the sentence No you eat that • Stage 2: negation inside the sentence I no/don’t can do these • Stage 3: Appearance of modals I can’t do that one • Stage 4: Appearance of analyzed ‘do’ with negation He doesn’t eat it.

  6. Theoretical Framework: SLA Morpheme orders • Present Progressive -ing • Regular past tense • Irregular past tense • Third person -s

  7. Theoretical Framework: SLA Virtually no SLA researcher advocates explicit instruction of the type that characterises prevalent grammar-translation methods.

  8. Part 2: Frequency approaches to Vocabulary Since grammar is ‘resistant’ to explicit instruction, how to sequence and organise learners’ exposure to Greek texts in a way that makes that input as manageable as possible? The value of frequency-based vocabulary learning

  9. Part 2: Frequency approaches to Vocabulary Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek: Aims to get students to 319 lemma Covering 79.92% of all tokens

  10. Part 2: Frequency approaches to Vocabulary The problem is you still can’t read anything. James Tauber, ‘Updated Vocabulary Coverage Statistics’ 2015.

  11. Part 2: Frequency approaches to Vocabulary Other problems: • 98% is needed for unimpeded reading (Paul Nation) • Lemma frequency and form frequency: • δίδωμι • 3rd singular aorist active far outstrips all other forms of δίδωμι • Students don’t need to delay learning δίδωμι, you can just teach them ἔδωκεν

  12. Part 3: Minimum Next-Step Frequency Instead of students learning disconnected vocabulary against the frequency across the whole corpus… … going from one text to the next text with the smallest number of new words. This idea derives largely from work by James Tauber, I have just taken it and applied it to the classroom.

  13. Part 4: Sequenced Readings in NT texts We drew up a list of NT pericopes based on Robinson-Pierpoint Reader’s Edition. This was not ideal but it was workable. We then asked: Which text would require the fewest words for students to have 90% of the vocabulary before they read it? Answer: 1 John 4. 61 core vocabulary, 31 new words.

  14. Part 4: Sequenced Readings in NT texts We drew up a list of NT pericopes based on Robinson-Pierpoint Reader’s Edition. This was not ideal but it was workable. We then asked: Which text would require the fewest words for students to have 90% of the vocabulary before they read it? Answer: 1 John 4. 61 core vocabulary, 31 new words.

  15. Part 4: Sequenced Readings in NT texts 4.1 Ἀγαπητοί, μὴ παντὶ πνεύματι πιστεύετε, ἀλλὰ δοκιμάζετε τὰ πνεύματα εἰ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, ὅτι πολλοὶ ψευδοπροφῆται ἐξεληλύθασιν εἰς τὸν κόσμον. 2 ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκετε τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ· πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ ὁμολογεῖ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, 3 καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν· καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου, ὃ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστὶν ἤδη.

  16. Part 4: Sequenced Readings in NT texts 001 1 Jn 4:1-21 63 base words, +31 new lemmata 002 1 Jn 5:1-12 80.31% coverage, 25 new lemmata 003 2 Jn 1:1-1:3 84.75%, 8 new 004 Jn 17:1-26 84.14%, 47 new 005 Jn 14:15-23 89.41%, 17 new 006 Jn 14:24-31 88%, 17 new 007 Jn 15:11-27 89.68, 21 new 008 Jn 14:1-14 90.66%, 16 009 Jn 16:16-33 81.27%, 22 010 Jn 16:1-15 91.11%

  17. Part 4: Sequenced Readings in NT texts Outcomes: Students looked at 35 passages over the semester. Syntax and morphology were explained in situ and as needed.

  18. Part 5: Problems, Solutions, Future • Size of text-selection • Johannine corpus bias • Sequencing on forms rather than lemma • Granularising vocab ‘knowledge’

  19. Part 5: Problems, Solutions, Future 5) Towards an integrated Greek reading platform • An online adaptive reading environment with integrated learning tools • Based on previous texts read, modelling encountered vocabulary, syntax, and morphology • Incorporating NT texts… and more.

  20. Part 5: Problems, Solutions, Future 6) A graded learner-oriented reading text (LGPSI) • Vocabulary and grammar graduated • 700-1000 words per chapter >> 10,000 words over first semester • Bridging the gap between Zero and New Testament

  21. Conclusion • Acquisition-oriented instruction • Better sequencing of texts • Research-led, data-driven • Better tools when… but better teaching now… Seumas Macdonald smacdonald@stcyrils.edu.au

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