[Biblical-languages] Right-brained language learning

Polycarp66 at aol.com Polycarp66 at aol.com
Thu Nov 27 15:58:17 EST 2003


In a message dated 11/27/2003 2:05:40 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
norbert.rennert at sil.org writes:
I'm new to this list and am not sure if my questions and comments are 
appropriate here. If you know of a better place for my concerns, please 
point me in that direction.
I'm wondering what kind of computer resources there are for 
right-brained language learners. It seems that Greek has always been 
taught with the analytical method.
(I define right-brained language learners as people who need to hear and 
read language in a larger context in order to learn successfully. They 
do not rely on parsing to decode.)
I have tried several times at learning Greek and have not succeeded very 
well. In my frustration I have come up with a new model for learning and 
teaching NT Greek and have produced a small website demonstrating this 
new method. I would like to invite you to take a look and give me some 
feedback on whether there are other places which use such a method and 
especially whether this method could be helpful in teaching 
right-brained students. At the moment it only has a short English story 
as a sample but I intend to apply this method to NT Greek.

Link: http://www3.telus.net/norbertre/index.html

A short explanation of my method
I have stored paradigms of a limited selection of vocabulary in a 
database and use it to manipulate a story. The user can control certain 
aspects of the story, such as tense, plurality, person, and gender. The 
program effectively re-writes the story according to the selections 
chosen by the user. This would allow every story to be presented from 
multiple perspectives enabling the student to learn different 
grammatical forms in the familar context of a story he or she already 
knows. Once a core vocabulary has been learned to understand the base 
story, the user can then focus on learning the new forms.
I'll take a look at your page later.  My initial reaction is that your 
ability to accomplish this is dependent upon your knowledge of the language and your 
ability to devise algorithms to implement a correct syntactical usage of the 
vocabulary.  One criticism of some texts written by some who are knowledgable 
in the field of Greek (also Hebrew) is that they contain "made up" sentences.  
I think this is basically what this would amount to.  I'm not one to 
criticize these "made up" sentences unless the result is that the constructions are 
not anywhere attested in the literature, but the danger exists.

You might try www.greeklatinaudio.com for a reading of the GNT (Westcott & 
Hort).  Perhaps you will find that helpful in that you can then hear the reading 
as well as see it.  Thus far he has Revelation, Matthew and part of Mark 
finished.

gfsomsel
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