(This is a fork from the Translation of the word τον τεθνηξομενον thread.)
I would be interested to know what people think the Grammar-Translation method is, both from those who are fans of the method and from those to him it is a dead end.
Which text books follow that method?
To what extent is this a label that gets put on those teaching who are actually just muddling along relying on their knowledge of Ancient Greek lacking any concept of teaching at all?
We’ve given it a name. Maybe, before we define it, we should read a few classic quotes by its critics:
One thing it does NOT mean. It does NOT mean that those who seek to replace Grammar-Translation with the Direct Method necessarily lack an understanding of Greek grammar.
BeDuhn’s 2003 “Truth in Translation” describes the process of (Bible) translation like this:
Translation begins with the identification of each Greek word. This is done using a dictionary or lexicon. Such reference works are compiled from the vast body of Greek literature we have at our disposal. Since new discoveries of Greek literature are made quite frequently, dictionaries and lexicons must be constantly updated with new information…The best Greek lexicon is that of Liddell & Scott…
Once all of the individual words have been more-or-less identified, they can be assembled into sentences. The grammatical markers that modify word roots point the way in this work. As the assembly-work goes on, the translator will modify individual word meanings according to clues from the context that is emerging. One of the most important steps from the interlinear to the literal phase is changing word order from what is acceptable in Greek to what works in English.
That does indeed describe my experiences of summer school. The emphasis was breaking it down and then picking out the key bits. One key problem was that in a class of 12 you are really watching the teacher do it. Hence it was a bit like watching a sport being done brilliantly and afterwards finding that watching hadn’t helped your own ability.
If only there were people in the London doing Ancient Greek conversation.
The other thing that stunned me about the summer school was the faith in simply showing a grammar point as being sufficient to teach it. The particular example was the teacher who got us copy down the entire perfect participle and then was surprised that I didn’t know it. And he was far and away the best teacher I encountered.
If I might not pollute this thread with my general ignorance of everything, how is the Hansen & Quinn text categorized under this discussion?
The Mounce-Wallace Grammar-Translation method is targeted at exegesis of texts. It is a bottom up system where it is presumed that breaking down a text into elements and reconstructing it from the level of morphemes up to the level of paragraphs will provide a foundation for finding the meaning of the text.
Mounce-Wallace are loaded with a traditional hermeneutical framework. They teach hermeneutics while teaching Greek. Its a package deal. You don’t just learn greek. You are supposed to absorb their way of handling the Greek bible.
The Grammar-Translation method entails learning a language for talking about language (metalanguage). This language will allow you to read Grammar-Translation textbooks and reference books. The Mounce-Wallace metalanguage is 19th century stuff. No linguistics of the modern sort.
To the extent that it does not include any Greek audio, there are no pictures with Greek captions, the glossaries are not mono-lingual, it emphasizes forms and paradigms over meaningful, illustrative Greek phrases, the only composition one does is English to Greek translation, the bulk of the exercises are Greek to English translation, and its method to teach Grammar is a rather heavy use of English meta-language, it is squarely in the Grammar-Translation camp.
I suppose this one gets the same classification as well?
Ok…I’ll bite…
I personally learned Greek in the “Grammar-Translation” method…although I’ve never heard it called that before. I think that C.S. is exactly right in what it’s purpose and function is. I didn’t learn Koine and Classical Greek so I could speak it…I learned it so I could read, exegete and understand what the text is saying.
All that being said…I do think that the Grammatical-Translation method is a great starting point. I learned enough Koine, that I was able to dig into Sophocles, Homer, Theodorus and others. At some point, after enough exposure in this method you quit translating and start simply understanding. This for me is ultimately the point. I honestly have no real desire to speak the language (modern Greek is another story)…who would I speak it to?
I’m sure some will disagree with me, but my question would be…what is the point of learning the language? Is it to speak it? Then don’t go with Grammatical-Translation method. But I have to say that as a pastor…I find my education serves me very well in my field.
Just my two cents worth.
If it worked for you then why would you try another method? However, the point of using living languages techniques is to engage more parts of your brain. Speaking isn’t the aim its a means.
Can I ask though how exclusively did you stick to simply reading through Greek texts, analysing and translating. Not even any reading aloud? No free composition?
I agree with Kopio. I too learned Greek and Latin by what is dismissed here as the “grammar-translation” method (at least I think that’s what my learning experience would be called, though I never heard the term until recently in this forum). I’m very satisfied with the results. I have no interest whatsoever in speaking or writing either language, and the so-called “grammar-translation” method gave me a solid foundation for a lifetime of engagement with Greek and Latin texts.
If you think that speaking and writing a foreign language will exercise other parts of your brain, there are far better ways to do so–you’re much better off learning a modern language with a vocabulary that’s geared to contemporary life (and doesn’t require you to coin neologisms or fashion convoluted circumlocutions at every turn), in which you can converse with, and be corrected by, native speakers, so that you don’t pick up the bad habits of your fellow-students. And the “framework” for the traditional “grammar-translation” method, while it may not take into account the latest developments in linguistic analysis (which are in any event fraught with controversy), is perfectly adequate to give students the ability to read and understand the texts.
Another point: I think that the picture painted here of the “grammar-translation” method is something of a caricature: it can be much more flexible and engaging than, for example, the grim picture painted in the Whitesell article linked to by jeidsath. If you work at it diligently, you assimilate grammar and vocabulary as you learn the rules (for want a better word) and the words, and you begin to read without translation as you do so.
But no matter how you go about it, learning a foreign language is not easy. It takes a lot of time and effort, especially if you’re not immersed for an extended period in an environment in which the target language is spoken on a constant basis, and that’s just not possible for us with Latin and ancient Greek. If you think you can learn better by a different method than the “grammar-translation” method, by all means go ahead. But, whatever method you use, do make sure you master the grammar if you want to go on to read Thucydides or Plato or Sophocles.
I hope that everyone here realizes what a serious discussion it is that we are having. We’re giving advice to people considering the study of ancient tongues. For many people there is the probability of much wasted effort (sometimes years worth). And there is also the possibility, alluded to by some here, of a twisted growth, where a that will stunt a learner at some level far below fluency. The goal however, is very much worth the risk and effort.
So I’m going to challenge Qimmik on something that I might let go in a less serious discussion. He refers to his level of attainment as enough for a “lifetime of engagement.” I work with a younger crowd who all read too much Twitter, and the phrase that they might use here is “banana for scale.” Qimmik’s term is very positive sounding, but it covers anything from knowing your alphabet to perfect fluency.
I think that for the sake of prospective learners, we should be more precise. What level of reading fluency are we talking about here? That is, I think, the interest of everyone here. I record my own voice every day, and am beginning to work on composition, and converse with various people in person and online. I listen to all the (good) audio that I can get my hands on. But the point of all of that is reading fluency.
So how to be more precise? There is no major “comprehension-only” exam for language. Markos, I, and others, of course, think that fact tells us something. Qimmik does not, and it would be begging the question to use it for evidence.
But we can take the comprehension parts of these descriptions for a starting point.
When you encounter new texts, can you read them almost as easily as your native tongue, understanding almost everything that you read (C2). Or maybe you can read a wide range of demanding texts, recognizing implicit meaning (C1 level)? Or main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics (B2 level)? Or understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters (B1)?
A1 and A2, I think, do not map well to ancient tongues, but they are a little beside the point – we are talking about the final results of study, not the initial results.
However, I’ll add another pair of questions, to really rate methods, how long did it take you, and did you use “grammar-translation” or something else (what)?
As much usefulness as there would be to a standardized “Greek exam” that we could give to everyone professing knowledge of the language – especially people making their living “teaching” – we don’t have it (yet?), and we’ll all have to self-evaluate here. I’ll go first.
For new texts that I haven’t read before, when I encounter them without a dictionary, I think that it would be fair to say that I am somewhere around “understanding the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters” for 2nd or 3rd century B.C. to 2nd century A.D. texts. I can usually get the main points of Xenophon when I turn to a random section of the Hellenica (not having read it). Aesop’s Fables are of widely varying difficulty for me, usually due to vocabulary. Lucian has begun to get easy. I can often understand the dialogue sections of Plato (opened at random), but the intricacies are far and away too hard. Demosthenes is mostly impossible. Scripture is of varying difficulty (from crystal clear to very hard), and not fair here because I have read large chunks of it in English. But I can usually get the main points.
My goal, of course, is something like C2 (first in Attic, and to use that to springboard to texts across as wide a period as I can manage). I hope to get to Attic B2 or C1 levels this year. And hopefully be something like C2 for a wide range of Greek within a few years.
I think that I’ve described my methods enough in this post and elsewhere. But I would love to see the self-evaluations of others here.
Daivid intended, I think, for this particular thread to be a place where we come neither to praise Grammar-Translation nor to bury it, but to define it. It’s of interest to me whether the definition would look different coming from its critics or it defenders, and to what extent one can come up with a purely neutral definition. But, for now, a few points of order:
Yes.
Rouse does not and Christophe Rico really does not. Paula Saffire does not, nor does Buth and the Greek Ollendorff sort of does not. Almost everyone else does.
Is there a better term for it? How neutral is the term?
This is a straw man. None of us are interested in speaking or writing the language per se, but we only do it because we think it will improve reading fluency. οὐ μανθάνομεν λαλεῖν, ἀλλὰ λαλοῦμεν ὥστε μανθάνειν.
This is an important part of the definition. And I note that Clayton is the only person so far on this thread who has answered the question.
I think Daivid is talking not about exercising other parts of your brain in general, but exercising those parts of your brain which are necessary to learn a language while learning that language. Stephen Krashen has argued that language is not learned, but acquired, and that these processes do indeed involve different parts of the brain. G/T is geared only towards the former, which is why he says it does not work.
One issue with time and Grammar-Translation is that because G-T is limited to reading Greek and reading about Greek, you can’t make use of any “dead time.” You lose the opportunity to listen to Greek while commuting to work or speaking Greek (even to yourself) while walking your dog or writing your tweats in Ancient Greek instead of English. (the point being if you are going to spend time on social media anyway, you might as well write a little Greek at the same time.) To that extent, going beyond G-T will give you more time, surely the most necessary resource for learning any language.
Yes, and the fact that after only a year you can read the (admittedly easy) Koine of Mark seems to me to be a vindication of the value of going beyond Grammar-Translation.
I did G-T only for several years and was unhappy with my progress. I added other methods and they have improved my reading fluency. There is also the question of internalization versus decoding.
We still need to define Grammar-Translation, I think.
Some of the quoted criticism overstates the case. Clearly it does work for some people. But you should also recognise for some it doesn’t. It would be really helpful at this point to have to hand some properly designed research to examine different methods of teaching to see what works. I suspect it doesn’t exist. And I suspect the reason it doesn’t exist is that Classics departments are run by people for whom current methods have worked and assume their experience is general. But I would have thought that even for those who have faith in the grammar-translation method would want to check whether that faith is justified. Unless that research exists then both sides of the argument are relying on anecdotes with all the bias that implies. Why has no classics association done something as basic as seeing what proportion of secondary students studying Ancient Greek reach a particular standard and how that compares with a modern language? Or has one?
My point about exercising different parts of the brain has nothing to do with exercising for the sake of it. Engaging with the language in different ways whether reading aloud, translating into the target language, composing freely in the target language or having a spoken dialogue in the target language is engaging more of your brain with the target language an enables the grammar and vocabulary of that language to be better internalized.
If that were not so why are modern languages taught using a grammar-translation method?
And when modern languages are taught with non native speakers talking to each other it is in a carefully controlled setting in which model forms of the grammar that is taught are presented and indeed often drilled before the students are given the chance to use those forms in a more free setting
Do we know this?
I started this thread with a question because I am far from certain that the Grammar-Translation method is quite such a narrow method as its critics allege. You seem to be confirming their picture of the method. So I ask what does the method involve beyond reading though a text and examining it?
We are all agreed on that. Learning the grammar is essential. If you have got the impression that is not so it is probably because you have misunderstood people who advocate intuitive methods.
Example 1:
Teacher tells the student a point of grammar.
Example 2:
Teacher gives the student lots of example sentences that illustrate the same point of grammar until the student grasps it themselves.
Is the teacher of the second example less concerned about grammar?
I have mixed feelings about this, but most importantly I wouldn’t say that when people (me included) “dimiss” Grammar-Translation we do it out of ignorance or out of irreverence. I would define GT as the method of learning that leans fundamentally on a) preparing for reading through grammar drills not involving original production in the target language and b) starting to read by translating the text at hand.
What I found is that once you get to a certain stage there are discussions which DO require the philological foundations that are usually associated with the grammar-translation method. With this agree wholesale with Qimmiko. They have to be taken from there, and I have absolutely no problem with that. One of the caricature of the inductive method is to find the word ἔρως glossed as “ἀγάπη” — at least the English, which, if time-restrained, would have left it at ‘love’, would be more honest.
My greatest problem with the GT is that, as Qimmick said, it probably requires “a lifetime commitment”. That’s all fine and dandy when you’re going to spend your life investing in these texts: it’s like the turtle and the hare, you’ll get ahead eventually. By brute force you WILL get through and acquire fluency.
But what if the hare started running? Wouldn’t it get there as well, and faster? For this is also about the speed, and the time constraints associated with high-school teaching or similar. Often it does keep on napping, I’ll give you that, and there is the real danger that students will get self-complacent, and rest on the laurels of the inductive method, and just because you acquired a, say, B2/C1 competence, that you’re just going to learn the rest by osmosis: I have no issue admitting that people who limit themselves to induction have a far coarser grasp on very important details than those people who did succeed with the GT. I warn others about this and try to steer clear myself, but it is a problem.
I will try an hypothesis which might sound ad hominem but which I think mirrors an important argument. If you’re a brilliant person and/or if you spend your life doing something I’m convinced you’ll eventually get really good at it. The challenge is here is finding a way of, without lowering the standards and within a limited time-frame, teaching well those students who aren’t brilliant. I am genuinely happy that you took a lot from your education, Qimmik, but do you agree or do you not agree that most people who learnt the Ancient languages like you did kept nothing from it except bad memories and a few isolated words? Again, not satisfactory. Even if it prepared you (I don’t know if it did) for a later philological career, the fact of the matter is that we should teach these languages in a way suitable for everyone, and then leave the specialization for later: leave the GT for later —call it Philology classes— and keep it off the classroom.
Not all Grammar-Translation is Mounce-Wallace. I started out with E. V. N. Goetchius (Language of NT. 1965). Goetchius was a lone wolf in the N. T. Greek textbooks. He demonstrates how something would be said in Greek compared to how something would be said in English at the phrase and clause level. He used pattern recognition. He was working with a framework something like late structuralism or early Chomsky. Edward C. Hobbs[1] told me that he obtained Goetchius early pre-publication drafts and used them in his classroom. Nobody after Goetchius wrote anything like this textbook.
While his approach to syntax was the strength of the book his approach to morphology caused me to go elsewhere to learn paradigms. The key difference in the simplest possible terms, Goetchius demonstrated at the clause and phrase level how to say something in Greek. He started there. Didn’t wait.
[1] Edward C. Hobbs
Edward C. Hobbs came to Wellesley College in 1981 as Professor of Religion, where he also served as Chairman of the Department of Religion until 1990, and to Harvard University as Sometime Frothingham Professor of New Testament.
Between 1958 and 1981 he was Professor of Theology and Hermeneutics at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, Professor of New Testament Theology at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and Professor of Medicine at the University of California (San Francisco Medical Center), where he taught philosophy of medicine. He was also Visiting Professor of Philosophy for seven years at the University of California campus at Davis. Prior to 1958 he had served for a decade on the faculties of the University of Chicago and Southern Methodist University. He has also served as Visiting Professor at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, as well as the Claremont Graduate School, Southern California School of Theology, Pacific School of Religion, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, and San Francisco Theological Seminary.
When you encounter new texts, can you read them almost as easily as your native tongue, understanding almost everything that you read (C2). Or maybe you can read a wide range of demanding texts, recognizing implicit meaning (C1 level)? Or main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics (B2 level)? Or understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters (B1)?
I think you’ll find, as you progress, that this scale of measurement, which may work for modern foreign languages, isn’t really useful or valid for ancient Greek. Some texts are easier than others; some authors have a style that’s very difficult. Plato reads somewhat more easily for me at least than Isocrates; Isocrates is usually easier (but blander) than Demosthenes; and Thucydides’ speeches are the most difficult prose of all–even the ancient Greeks and those Roman who knew Greek nearly at a native speaker level found him very difficult. Tragedy is even more difficult than prose, using a different language with different vocabulary and syntactic license. And there are also many obscurities in all ancient authors that scholars still puzzle over, offering alternative explanations.
A big factor that isn’t usually present in approaching texts in modern languages is the state of the texts themselves. Frequently, when I stumble over a passage, I find that conjectures in the apparatus or notes indicate that others, scholars whose Greek is or was much more competent than mine, have puzzled over these same passages and there’s reason to believe that something is wrong with the text.
Another factor–reading ancient texts requires filling in a substantial amount of historical and cultural background information that can be taken for granted in reading modern texts in foreign languages. And if we’re interested in the totality of ancient Greek civilization, we also want to know how a particular text is related to other texts by the same author or different authors, which is one of the things for which commentaries are useful, but which requires a different kind of reading than modern texts.
All of this is to say that engaging with an ancient Greek text is a different experience than picking up a copy of Proust and breezing through it the same way you would, uh, The Da Vinci Code.
Incidentally, I pursued the formal study of Greek and Latin only through the undergraduate level. This is for me an avocation, not a career, and I’ve never taught either language (or anything else, for that matter). But I do think that the “grammar translation” method by which I learned got me reading real ancient Greek texts relatively quickly and provided a solid basis for further learning.
One difficulty in the path of students eager to learn ancient Greek today, however, is that English grammar apparently is no longer thought to be useful and isn’t taught in schools. Some of what was taught when I was in school was really naive in light of modern linguistics, but at least we had a basic framework for understanding grammar, and maybe the “grammar-translation” method presupposes familiarity with such a framework that students today don’t have at their disposal today. And it helped that I had a couple of years of Latin before I started Greek.
Qimmik, do you agree or do you not agree that most people who learnt the Ancient languages like you did kept nothing from it except bad memories and a few isolated words?
That was true of a few kids in my class, but others have kept up over the years, and some have pursued distinguished academic careers in Classics. One of them edited and translated the new Loeb Euripides. Like most of the kids in my high-school Greek classes, I was there because I wanted to learn Greek. I was so excited–I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this–and I still feel that way!
One more thought–not everyone has the opportunity to learn Greek in secondary school, and not everyone who wants to experience ancient Greek texts has enough time to commit to learning the language at what I would call an advanced level. I think using translations along with the Greek text is a good compromise, and I don’t see anything wrong with it. The Loeb series is very useful for this, especially, since many of the more important texts for which previous editions were less than adequate have been revised or completely reissued in recent years.
Maybe a comparison of the G-T Method and the Communicative Approach will be helpful.
One approach to learning Ancient Greek is the Grammar-Translation approach. The approach began sometime after Latin and Ancient Greek had ceased to be used as living languages and grew in use until, in the mid-19th Century it was to dominate. Grammar-Translation teaching consists of naming and explaining elements in the language, the grammar and forms. The teacher sets a schedule for the memorization of grammatical terms, rules, paradigms, and vocabulary. Practicing what has been learned is typically done by translating Greek sample sentences into the students’ mother tongue. Assessment consists of translation and vocabulary testing.
The Communicative Approach treats Ancient Greek as a living language. Learning is done by communicating in Greek. Methods that fall under this approach* use “Comprehensible Input” and “Pushed Output.” Greek is communicated through spoken or written means that are made understandable (Comprehensible Input) and learners are asked, after an initial stage of learning, to produce Greek (Pushed Output).
Typical Communicative Approach teaching consists of communicating Greek through gestures, props, game play, physical commands, storytelling & questioning, or any other means that will make the language understandable. Value is put on avoiding English whenever possible. Assessment is done through observation of understanding. A teacher observes whether a student correctly obeys a command or accurately answers a question put to him/her in Greek. Or, a story is presented in Greek and comprehension questions are put to the students in Greek.
The Grammar-Translation approach equips learners to decipher Greek. Successful Grammar-Translation learners can give accurate and complete explanations of what the individual forms and pieces of grammar in a text are telling us. The results are scientific and impressive.
The Communicative Approach leads to swallowing language as communication. Successful communicative approach learners can better understand what a text means to say. If used solely, the learner may not be able to explain in grammatical terms why a passage means what it says, except by examples of other texts.
It should be noted that neither approach is entirely pure. Some communication in Greek can take place in the Grammar-Translation approaches. Analysis, labeling, and use of English do take place in the Communicative Approach, though it will always follow grappling with the language as communication first.
Both approaches can lead to a good understanding of Ancient Greek. But, in my opinion, both approaches are not equal in terms of accessibility to average learners, in pedagogical effectiveness, or in terms of the type of language comprehension that is attained.
01 Aug 2014, PD Nitz
*Some methods under the umbrella of the Communicative Approach include: Direct Method (Rouse, early 1900’s), Total Physical Response (Asher, 1977), Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (Ray, 1997), Where Are Your Keys (Gardner, 2010).
My greatest problem with the GT is that, as Qimmick said, it probably requires “a lifetime commitment”.
No, I didn’t write that the traditional method of learning Greek requires a lifetime commitment. However, it does require a substantial commitment during the learning process–somewhat less than a year of learning the grammar and vocabulary, and another year of careful reading. My point is that the effort expended in that process will give you a lifetime of pleasure engaging with ancient Greek texts.
The Grammar-Translation approach equips learners to decipher Greek. Successful Grammar-Translation learners can give accurate and complete explanations of what the individual forms and pieces of grammar in a text are telling us. . . . The Communicative Approach leads to swallowing language as communication. Successful communicative approach learners can better understand what a text means to say.
This is a caricature and an inaccurate one. The goal of what is described as the grammar-translation method is to enable the student to read and understand ancient Greek texts. It requires substantial effort on the part of the student, but that effort pays off rapidly and efficiently with reading comprehension, and equips the student to analyze and understand difficulties when they are encountered in more advanced reading. Those of us who learned Greek by this approach don’t–as this seems to imply–merely analyze and translate: we read difficult ancient Greek texts more or less fluently without translation and I daresay we get at least as close to grasping the meaning as anyone brought up on the so-called “communicative” approach.
For the reasons I explained earlier, really engaging with ancient Greek texts is a more complex process than sitting down and breezing through the text as you would a piece of contemporary genre fiction.
Successful communicative approach learners can better understand what a text means to say.
Statistics? I strongly doubt this is true, at least in the case of ancient Greek.
Thanks for the reply. You are right, I wrote without qualifiers. My apologies. In fact, one of the criticisms of Grammar Translation with which I disagree is that it cannot result in reading comprehension of texts. Its goal certainly is to enable students to read Greek. And I know that it can. But I have become convinced that its methods are not accessible for the great majority of learners. Some gifted learners seamlessly transfer from analysis of language to comprehension of language. Most quickly get overloaded and do not keep up. According to the Latin crowd of communicative teachers, about 4% of learners fully succeed in understanding language through analysis.
So while my statement was too general and a caricature, I do still respectfully hold the opinion that Grammar Translation instruction is more likely to yield decoders than readers. I’ve witnessed many examples of this effect. Moises Silva’s book (God, Language, Scripture) is replete with examples. But his experience and mine is with Biblical scholars. Students of the classics might be a very different story.
No, you’re quite right. There are no statistics available from the study of Ancient Greek. It is a common objection to the Communicative Approach as applied to Ancient Greek. We have only experience, anecdotal proof, and the analogy of the study of living languages.