Sheltering Vocabulary resequencing the Greek reading experience for
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 • Within the context of online, asynchronous instruction
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).
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?
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.
Theoretical Framework: SLA Morpheme orders • Present Progressive -ing • Regular past tense • Irregular past tense • Third person -s
Theoretical Framework: SLA Virtually no SLA researcher advocates explicit instruction of the type that characterises prevalent grammar-translation methods.
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
Part 2: Frequency approaches to Vocabulary Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek: Aims to get students to 319 lemma Covering 79. 92% of all tokens
Part 2: Frequency approaches to Vocabulary The problem is you still can’t read anything. 75% 90% 95% 100 24. 36% 2. 13% 0. 64% 0. 48% 200 51. 80% 9. 75% 3. 43% 25. 4% 500 82. 23% 36. 57% 17. 81% 13. 81% 1000 93. 60% 62. 57% 37. 28% 29. 99% 2000 98. 41% 84. 95% 65. 38% 56. 43% 5000 100% 99. 51% 96. 44% 94. 58% James Tauber, ‘Updated Vocabulary Coverage Statistics’ 2015.
Part 2: Frequency approaches to Vocabulary Other problems: • 98% is needed for unimpeded reading (Paul Nation) • Lemma frequency and form frequency: • δίδωμι • 3 rd singular aorist active far outstrips all other forms of δίδωμι • Students don’t need to delay learning δίδωμι, you can just teach them ἔδωκεν
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.
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.
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.
Part 4: Sequenced Readings in NT texts 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 1 Jn 4: 1 -21 1 Jn 5: 1 -12 2 Jn 1: 1 -1: 3 Jn 17: 1 -26 Jn 14: 15 -23 Jn 14: 24 -31 Jn 15: 11 -27 Jn 14: 1 -14 Jn 16: 16 -33 Jn 16: 1 -15 63 base words, +31 new lemmata 80. 31% coverage, 25 new lemmata 84. 75%, 8 new 84. 14%, 47 new 89. 41%, 17 new 88%, 17 new 89. 68, 21 new 90. 66%, 16 81. 27%, 22 91. 11%
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. Sequenced Readings Mark 1 -4 Tokens (words) 8282 2460 Forms 1497 887 Lemmata 568 510
Part 5: Problems, Solutions, Future 1) Size of text-selection 2) Johannine corpus bias 3) Sequencing on forms rather than lemma 4) Granularising vocab ‘knowledge’
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.
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
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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