As is the case for many of us Connie Rodriguez, Associate Professor at Loyola University of New Orleans, learned many lessons while teaching high school and these lessons stayed with her as she began to teach Greek to the children of Louisiana. Connie and I are good friends and have worked together in the Louisiana Classical Association of which she is currently president. We frequently discussed pedagogical matters, including the lack of proper pedagogical materials to support the teaching of Greek. Her hands on approach to solving the problem of "Teaching Greek to the Grammarless" can serve as an example of the sort of work that needs to be done if we are to make significant progress in the teaching methodologies we employ in our classrooms.
How many of us have found ourselves in the following scenario? We are in the first or second week of introductory Greek class and we give our students their first English to Greek composition assignment. We are rewarded with blank stares, moans and the question, "You want me to what?" We coax, we cajole, we get the assignments back (often reluctantly). As we grade them and see the results, our first reactions are to wonder what planet our students grew up on or whether we have fallen into a rift in the space/time continuum. Where did they get the idea that the genitive case was the subject? Do they not know that they cannot use a second person plural verb when the subject is "they"? How many times have our students conjugated nouns or declined adverbs? How many times have we had to tell them the dative indirect object does not take a preposition? How much class time do we spend teaching the students to parse basic English sentences so that they can understand even the simplest compositions in Greek? How many times do we have to repeat over and over again questions like "How is this noun used in the sentence?", "What is the case of the subject?", or "What are the person, number and tense for this verb?" After who knows how many hours we finally get the students to understand the basics of English grammar and what happens? Something in Greek grammar does not match exactly with what we have taught them about English, or worse, the Greek construction does not have an English equivalent at all. The whole cycle starts all over again. Is there any wonder that it takes three or more semesters to teach any of the current introductory texts?
In the ideal Greek classroom, all students know their English grammar cold. They can parse the most complex sentences with the greatest of ease and write perfect Greek compositions. But how many of us have ideal Greek classrooms? We no longer assume gram matical savvy from many of our students. We feel resigned to spend as much time teaching English grammar as we do teaching Greek, sometimes we spend more time. Our frustration is further complicated by the varying levels of grammatical proficiency our stu dents actually possess. Some students know the basics of English grammar, others know nothing and still others fall somewhere in the middle. In the ongoing search for the "golden mean" of how much English grammar we need to teach, we either bore to tears those who grasp grammatical concepts or we lose the students who do not while we move ahead at a steady pace. We have the choice of plowing ahead or plodding along. And somewhere along the way, some students are guaranteed to get frustrated and drop out, if not at the end of the first semester, then certainly be the end of the first year.
I first noticed the need to teach English grammar in my classes when I started teaching Latin at the secondary level almost twenty years ago. As a high school teacher, I saw first hand that grammar was not being taught in English classes the way it had b een taught when I had been a high school student. Consequently, it was not uncommon for my students not to know the difference between a noun, an adjective, an adverb or a verb. With my Latin students lacking such basics, how could I expect them to unders tand complex structures as indirect discourse, adverbial clauses or ablative absolute? At that time, I turned to an English grammar book that my mother had used in college during the 1940's to help me explain grammar to my students.
Over the years, the situation has not improved. Students learn their English grammar "by doing" as my high school German teacher used to say. To make matters worse, English grammar books are now recognizing colloquial English expressions as acceptable wi thin composition. My English instructors in high school or at university would have placed me into remedial classes if I had used slang or colloquialism in my papers. I ask myself whether grammarians are getting tired of fighting a losing battle or just g etting sloppy. Whatever is going on with English grammar, I find myself spending more time every year teaching it in beginning Latin or Greek classes.
During the years I spent at the secondary level, the lack of students' preparation in English grammar prompted the appearance of books explaining English grammar in "Latin" terms. By English grammar in Latin "terms", I mean books comparing English and La tin grammatical structures. When I switched from teaching introductory Latin to introductory Greek four years ago, my searches for similar materials for Greek students were not as successful. Although the more recently published Greek textbooks, like Anne Groton's From Alpha to Omega, assume less English grammar knowledge and explain grammar in more detail than those from which I studied, to my knowledge, a book or manual that compares English and Greek grammatical structures does not exist.
When a student remarked a couple of years ago in an introductory Greek class that she had learned more English grammar in six weeks than she had ever learned in an English class, she was not saying anything that I had not already heard on many occasions over the years. For some reason her remark struck home. Realizing that I had the choice of continuing to teach English grammar during Greek class to the grammarless who could never fully understand the subtleties of Greek grammar without a knowledge of En glish, I decided that it was time to stop lamenting the sorrowful state of my students' grammar preparation and to write a book of my own explaining English grammar in "Greek" terms that they could use to supplement their textbooks. My initial purpose was to provide my students with much needed grammatical materials without wasting class time unnecessarily. As a graduate student I had discovered English Grammar for Students of Latin, part of a series published by The Olivia and Hill Press. I liked its lay out and attention to detail. Using it as my guide and model, I spent the 1994-95 academic year writing English Grammar for Students of Classical Greek. I used Smyth's Greek Grammar to help me with the finer details of grammar and borrowed sample sentences from various Greek texts in my possession, including those by Chase and Philips, Hanson and Quinn, Anne Groton and others.
The purpose of English Grammar for Students of Classical Greek is simple -- to provide my students, whether at the beginning or advanced level, with basic knowledge of English grammar and to compare Greek grammar with it. Each unit explores the similarit ies and differences between both languages. The text provides examples of structural usage for both languages and it walks students through the kinds of questions they should ask themselves when doing composition or analyzing Greek sentences. Even if stud ents do not do composition, the text can help them gain a better understanding of the grammatical subtleties of both languages.
English Grammar starts with the very basics, escribing what nouns are, what is meant by gender, number or case, what definite and indefinite articles are, and so on. It then progresses to more difficult topics like relative pronouns, indirect statement and conditional sentences. Each unit or chapter first describes the grammatical terminology, then it discusses how English grammar deals with the particular topic. Finally, the unit describes how the same topic is handled in Greek. The unit makes clear wh en there is no English grammatical equivalent for a Greek construction, and then proceeds to describe the principles of the Greek construction. Each unit also provides references to other units when those topics are mentioned so that students can instantl y and easily refer to topics that they have not yet had or for which they need to refresh their memories.
This book can be used as a supplement to any Greek textbook since each unit is encapsulated within itself and can be used in any order. Some units, like t hat on indirect statement, can be used more than once as students encounter the different ways in w hich Greek formulates these types of statements. Ideally as an instructor, one can assign units to his or her classes as independent reading prior to introducing the lesson's Greek grammar or discuss them with students during class in conjunction with the day's assignment. In short, the book should allow you to spend less time in class discussing English and more time discussing Greek. Students will be able to understand the basics of English and, if they do not, they can ask you specific questions about what they have read.
I have brought with me two examples of units from the text -- the first is an early unit discussing gender, entitled "What is Meant by Gender?" As you can see, the unit begins by explaining what gender is. It then discusses the nature of gender in Englis h and provides examples of each of the three genders. Once this concept is grasped by the students, the unit then discusses gender in Greek. It defines natural and grammatical genders and gives examples in Greek for natural gender which is like English ge nder and t he more easily understood of the two types. The unit then goes into greater detail concerning grammatical gender and provides examples of nouns in English which, in Greek, would be either masculine, feminine or neuter, regardless of their Engli sh genders. The unit further tells the student that grammatical gender cannot be predicted for Greek nouns but must be learned and that the best way to learn Greek gender is to learn the definite article for each noun when the study their vocabulary.
The second example, "What is a Relative Pronoun?", comes from a later portion of the text and represents a more difficult grammatical concept. How many blank stares have you received when you have pronounced the rule, "The relative pronoun takes its gend er and number from its antecedent but its case is determined by its use within the relative clause"? No matter bow many times you say it, no matter how many different ways you say it, the rule does not make sense to many students until you explain what an antecedent is, what a relative clause is and give countless examples, usually in English, on the black board or overhead projector. I find that it takes me almost an entire fifty minute class session to explain the rule. Just when I think the students un derstand antecedents, relative pronouns and clauses, along comes a sentence for composition that lacks a relative pronoun and has a dangling preposition at the end of the clause, perfectly legitimate colloquial English. Then I have to spend more time show ing students how to "convert" the sentence for Greek composition. Needless to say, this is a time-consuming exercise that could be better spent reading Greek!
This unit, first of all, describes what a relative pronoun is, defines what an antecedent is and tells what a relative or subordinate clause is with example sentences showing what these forms are. It then lays out four steps that students should follow, for both English and Greek, when attempting to determine the function of a relative pronoun within the relative clause. The unit then discusses the English relative pronoun and its cases -- subjective, objective and possessive and when to use who, which o r that. I find myself more often than I like stressing the fact that "which" and "that" are used when the antecedent is a thing and "who", "whom", and "whose" are used for persons. I feel like I am the only instructor who sees English compositions where s tudents use "which" or "that" for persons. The unit shows students how complex sentences are formed by linking two simple sentences with a relative pronoun. The unit also shows students how to recognize a colloquial sentence which lacks a relative pronoun and how to restructure it so that they have a grammatically correct sentence for composition which includes the relative pronoun and the preposition in its proper place. After this discussion of the relative pronoun in English, the unit reminds the stude nt that the relative pronoun in Greek has cases, singular and plural, for all three genders, and unlike English, the relative pronoun can never be omitted from a Greek sentence. The unit closes with five steps for determining the correct form of the Greek relative pronoun to use in a sentence and several detailed examples of how the process works.
This unit is a great time-saver in class that allows the instructor to deal with specific questions about relative pronouns while spending less time describing how the whole process works. Less time pent on description means more time spent with Greek te xt. By having this grammar book in hand, the students can refer to it as often as they need to and the instructor has the comfort of knowing that there has been no cross-up in communication or that students have somehow made errors in their notes.
I tested this book during 1995-96 in both my introductory and advanced level Greek classes with great success. And I used it this fall to review some of the more important points, like indirect discourse, purpose and result clauses, with my second and th ird year students. I have found from my use of the text that the book helps my beginning students not only to understand the basics like case and gender, but also to recognize and handle the more difficult constructions, like the uses for participles or c onditional sentences. I have also found that it helps the advanced students in reviewing and understanding more clearly whatever constructions they continue to find particularly tricky.
My approach is to have my students read whatever unit is relevant for the chapter in the textbook that will be discussed during class. For example, before introducing Greek nouns to my beginning students, I assign the units "What is a Noun?". "What is Me ant by Gender?", "What is Meant by Number?" and "What is Meant by Case?". These are relatively short and provide the students with information that is perhaps not presented in detail in their textbooks. The units present the materials in such a way that t he side by side comparison of English and Greek make the two languages more relevant to each other. In class, I follow a Socratic approach when looking at the material presented in the units and textbook, and I ask students to explain to me the various po ints discussed -- to define what a noun is, what cases are, why they are important, their functions and so on. I find that students will also ask questions about things which they still do not understand. In short, I find myself spending less time discuss ing all the aspects of English grammar for a particular lesson and only discussing those points which are causing difficulty. I repeat, less time spent on English means more time spent on Greek.
The comparative approach taken by English Grammar for Students of Classical Greek helps the students realize that they intuitively know more about their own grammar than they believed they did. It also creates a level field, if you will. I find that I do not bore students who already have grammar savvy with lengthy discussions of English grammar; I find that students with little knowledge of grammar may still have questions but also have a higher level of understanding; and the students in the middle lik ewise benefit. With this book, I do not have to discuss any more English grammar than I have to and I have more time for Greek. The similarities and differences between the two grammars help to ease all the students into Greek composition and sentence analysis.
The text is by no means finished; I am currently trying to fine tune some of the areas which I found weak. In my use of the book, I have found that I would like to add more information about the past tenses and discuss each of them in separate units, mor e in keeping with the way in which many textbooks present these tenses. I would like to create units about indefinite pronouns and adjectives. And I am considering trying to develop a unit on Greek accentuation. This last task is the most daunting and cau ses me the greatest trepidation. I am convinced that there has to be a way to explain accents in simple terms that beginning students can understand. Whether I am up to the task remains to be seen.
This fall, I provided a copy to Dr. Wilfred Major who is teaching introductory Greek at Loyola. In addition, I sent a copy to Professor Steve Schierling of LSU. Their comments have been very useful to me in the refining process and will be incorporated. Among their suggestions are the inclusion of a chart and synopsis for English verb tenses, similar to what has been given for Greek verbs and stronger, clearer distinctions between English and Greek uses of participles and infinitives that stress the differences between how the two languages use these forms.
I have with me here today two copies for your perusal. I welcome your comments and suggestions before improvement.
Shortly after undertaking this project have been in contact with Jacqueline Morton who holds the copyright to the English Grammar series at The Olivia and Hill Presses and hope that she and the press will find the project one worth pursuing. If not, I sh all seek out other venues for getting the text into the hands of instructors and students who want it for their Greek classes.
Connie Rodriguez
Department of Classical Studies
Box 113
Loyola University
6363 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
(504) 865-2287 (w)
E-mail: rodrigue@beta.loyno.edu
