Classes

1. Required Materials

Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek Book I, Maurice Balme, Gilbert Lawall Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (February 28, 2003) ISBN-10: 0195149564; ISBN-13: 978-0195149562

Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek (Workbook I), by Gilbert Lawall, James F. Johnson, Luigi Miraglia (Author) Oxford University Press (February 28, 2003); ISBN: 0195149564; ISBN-13: 978-0195149548

Small Whiteboard Tablet, dry erase markers and eraser

2. Recommended Resources

There are a number of additional books aligned with the conversational and story driven aim of Athenaze. Here is a link to a brief list. This list also contains a number of free online texts and aids.

http://www.biblicalgreek.org/grammar/athenaze/materials.php

There are a number of books that no self respecting serious Greek student should be without. These include a good grammar (beginning and intermediate), a Greek New Testament, a good lexicon, and a couple study aids. For a list of the essential Greek library and links to purchase them see www.BiblicalGreek.org/books.php. There are also links of what the library of the more serious student should contain as well as a nearly exhaustive list of in print references and back ground materials.

3. Course Requirements

I. Participation (5%)

By its very nature language is a skill that involves participation. Not only are students expected to attend every class (Unexcused absences will always negatively effect final grades and students are responsible for all missed class notes and materials.) but students should come to class on time, with readings and homework completed, prepared to participate fully, and remain for the entire class time unless prior approval is granted. Students will be graded upon the zeal they exhibit as they perform the in class exercises. Students are expected to participate actively in class discussion with appropriate Christian humility, charity, and respect. Students who do not contribute to class and recitation discussions should not expect to earn more than a CH in this area.

II. Quizzes (25%)

Students must be prepared for a short quiz during each class. Quizzes are comprehensive, but emphasize the most recent material. Sometimes the quiz will be the recitation of a spoken dialogue. Just getting all of the words right merits an MCH. The degree of fluency merits a higher grade. Students will be required to compose Greek sentences, dialogues, and very brief stories. Student will be graded on the most minor elements of the language including accents and spelling.

III. Major Term Exam (40%)

There will be a midterm examination during the term. The exam will mainly cover the material in the daily assignments.

V. Oral Final Exam (30%)

There will be a brief oral final exam where students will be conducted in Greek. It will cover the assignments, lectures, class discussion, and any other material relevant to this course. Students will be briefed to the specifics prior to the exam.

4. Schedule

5. Colloquium Overview

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES AND MEANS FOR THE SIX TERM COLLOQUIUM

Not only do the greatest and most foundational classics come to us through the Greek language, it is the language of the fullest revelation in our Holy Scriptures. Therefore it is a sine qua non of Christian Education. New Saint Andrews College requires a six term colloquium of Historical Greek and offers additional courses in Greek for students to continue onto higher levels of proficiency and acquaintance with more classic works than are contained within the colloquium.

The primary objective for the colloquium is to bring students to a basic reading level for the New Testament in the original language and to ground them so well in the basics that their skills will continue in their life after graduation. The colloquium will provide students with an enduring confidence in their ability to translate New Testament books by guiding students through the translation of a minor epistle (I John), an entire gospel, and a Pauline epistle. Students will engage exegetical issues and hermeneutics as they translate these works. Students will memorize portions of these works in Greek and learn the structure of each work well enough to identify the chapter reference of any passage in the work. In additional to New Testament material students will translate, compose, and converse in material from classical Greek. This broader exposure to the language will help students ground their understanding in broader historical trends in the language, ensure that they are learning the language rather than merely relying on scripture memory, and open up the language of the greatest classics.

In order to bring students to a basic reading level, students will memorize all of the vocabulary that occurs 30 times or more in the New Testament. Additionally, students will memorize vocabulary that occurs in their thorough translations as well as common classical Greek vocabulary. Students will also memorize the principal parts to common Greek verbs and gain an understanding of how to take educated guesses for unfamiliar forms.

The recent trend in higher education is to reduce the language requirements to allow time for other supposedly more practical courses. The result of these reduced requirements is that Greek courses have been stripped down to bare bones translation lessons or merely how to use language tools to gain an understanding of original vocabulary and grammar. Traditional education that included composition and sometime conversations with a goal toward fluency have been cast aside by the argument that today’s Christian scholars don’t have to be fluent but merely have to decipher to the original meaning of the text. Composition and conversational skills would then overshoot this goal and be a waste of time. New Saint Andrews college disagrees with this argument and maintains with modern language theory and thousands of years of language teaching practice that active language skills such as composition and conversation are necessary to truly learn a language even if only to read it. If one can’t compose the language himself, he has no way of being surprised by a particular author’s choice of words or gaining a feel for the various styles of different authors and genres. New Saint Andrews stands against this reductionistic trend that has so devastated Christian education and the church over the last century. It has consciously committed itself to a position dedicated to preserving a central place for classical languages in the college (a total of four years are required of which 1 ½ - 2 ½ years are historical Greek) and continually strives for the inclusion of more active language methods in the classroom.

For these reasons students in most basic courses that emphasize grammar acquisition learn to compose and converse using the grammar with a limited vocabulary. Once the grammatical foundation has been laid and the courses focus more on vocabulary and reading while reviewing the basics. In the final terms of the colloquium students focus on exegesis, hermeneutics, and the structure of the text they are reading in the original. At this level double translations serve as the composition tool to help give students a feel for the author’s style.