O pandemic, mother of invention. I take started assigning my Ovid students homework of submitting a recording of ten-fifteen lines, which nosotros read at sight in form, read aloud rather than translated. Moodle makes this easy to submit. It'due south amazing how readily you can tell if they understand. I added a part that involves picking v key words and looking them up the dictionary and explaining why they think they are important, which gets in an interpretive element consequent with my learning goals. Just that's not essential, of course. The results of the first round are so good, the ability to hear if they get Ovid's tone then cool, the interpretations they gave in the written office so perceptive, and the homework and then damn easy to course, I had to share. I emphasized that I wasnot judging their pronunciation, but rather their pausing and accent as it reflects comprehension. I may never go back to grading written translations.

Hither is the prompt:

  • Read the passage out loud in Latin with accent and pausing that reflect comprehension. Submit a recording.
  • Find the five almost important or emphatic words in the passage in your view;
    • write the location in Lewis & Short where the contextually appropriate meaning of each if these five words is listed
    • give the contextually appropriate translation of these five words
    • explain briefly why you believe each discussion is important in the context

And here is the example I provided:

Ovid,Metamorphoses one.1–4.

Innovafert animusmutatasdicere formas

corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)

adspiratemeis primaque ab origine mundi

ad meaperpetuumdeducite tempora carmen!

nova: "new" (LSnovusI.A), or "strange" (LSnovus I.B): this is the first pregnant word, and separated a long manner from the discussion information technology modifies,corpora, which gives it emphasis. What he has to say will be "new" and/or "foreign." Exciting!

mutatas: "changed" (LSmutoIi.A.ane), going withformas. This whole poem is about change, then it makes sense to foreground this discussion in the first line.mutatas formas is pretty much Latin for the Greek titleMetamorphoses ("Transformations").

adspirate: "to exist favorable to, to favor, aid (the effigy taken from a fair breeze)" + dat. (LSaspiro I.A.ii), governingcoeptis meis ("the work I have begun"). Ovid is calling on the gods to favor his enterprise, so this is a key give-and-take, emphasized by beingness commencement in the line. It'southward imperative, looking back to the vocativedi in line 2. Tone is confident (?).

perpetuum: "continuous, unbroken, uninterrupted" (LSperpetuus I.A). Ovid'southward song will be "continuous" and extend all the way from the origin of the world to his ain time. Very ambitious! Likewise, if y'all've read theMetamorphoses you know information technology'southward loosely organized, with one story after another in a continuous stream. So he may exist giving us a heads up about that.

A few notes:

  • I grade these on a 1-10 scale, and they have under 5 minutes each to grade.
  • The due engagement is midnight on the day afterwards nosotros read the lines at sight in class. I don't want it to get dried. Corking way to review and reinforce, I think.
  • The students have as a textbook Peter Jones' superb Reading Ovid. This helps the students by giving them context, interpretive summaries, vocabulary, macrons on the Latin, and excellent interpretive notes. I frigging love this book. This assignment asks them to go beyond it by investigating in the dictionary and proverb what they recollect.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crystiancruz/3235797556/in/photostream/

Crytian Cruz, via Flickr (http://scrap.ly/13HaBAU)

(This is a slightly revised version of a talk given by Chris Francese on January 4, 2013 at the American Philological Clan Meeting, at the panel "New Adventures in Greek Teaching," organized past Willie Major.)

Not long ago, in the process of making some websites of reading texts with commentary on classical authors, I became interested in high-frequency vocabulary for ancient Greek. The idea was straightforward: define a core list of high frequency words that would not be glossed in running vocabulary lists to back-trail texts designed for fluid reading. I was fortunate to be given a set of frequency information from the TLG by Maria Pantelia, with the sample restricted to authors up to Advertizing 200, in social club to avoid distortions introduced church fathers and Byzantine texts. And so I thought I had information technology made. But I soon found myself in a quicksand, slowly drowning in a morass infested with subconscious, nasty predators, until Willie Major threw me a rope, starting time via his published piece of work on this field of study, and then with his collaboration in creating what is now a finished core list of around 500 words, available free online. I want to thank Willie for his generosity, his collegiality, his dedication, and for including me on this console. I also received very generous help, data infusions, and advice on our core list from Helma Dik at the Academy of Chicago, for which I am most grateful.

What our websites offering that is new, I believe, is the combination of a statistically-based yet lovingly hand-crafted core vocabulary, along with handmade glosses for non-core words. The idea is to facilitate smoothen reading for not-specialist readers at whatever level, in the tradition of the Bryn Mawr Commentaries, merely with media—sound recordings, images, etc. Bells and whistles bated, however, how practise you get students to really absorb and master the core list? Rachel Clark has published an interesting paper on this trouble at the introductory level of ancient Greek that I commend to you. There is also of course a large literature on vocabulary conquering in mod languages, which I am going to ignore completely. This paper is more in the way of an acting report from the field about what my colleague Meghan Reedy and I accept been doing at Dickinson to integrate core vocabulary with a government based on sight reading and comprehension, as opposed to the traditional prepared translation method. Consider this a provisional attempt to think through a pedagogy to become with the websites. I should as well mention that nosotros brand no groovy claim to originality, and have taken inspiration from some belatedly nineteenth century teachers who used sight reading, in particular Edwin Post.

In the class of some mandated cess activities it became clear that the traditional prepared translation method was not yielding students who could choice their way through a new chunk of Greek with sufficient vocabulary assistance, which is our ultimate goal. With this learning goal in heed nosotros tried to back-design a system that would yield the desired result, and accept developed a new routine based effectually the twin ideas of core vocabulary and sight reading. Students are held responsible for the core list, and they read and are tested at sight, with the stipulation that non-core words will be glossed. I have no statistics to evidence that our current authorities is superior to the old style, merely I do know it has changed substantially the dynamics of our intermediate classes, I believe for the better.
Students' class preparation consists of a mix of vocabulary memorization for passages to be read at sight in class the next solar day, and comprehension/grammar worksheets on other passages (ones not normally dealt with in class). Class itself consists mainly of sight translation, and review and discussion of previously read passages, with grammar review equally needed. Testing consists of sight passages with comprehension and grammer questions (like the worksheets), and vocabulary quizzes. Written assignments focus on textual analysis as well equally literal and polished literary translation.

The concept (non always executed with 100% effectiveness, I hasten to add) is that for homework students focus on relatively straightforward tasks they can successfully complete (the vocabulary grooming and the worksheets). This preserves form time for the much more difficult and higher-order task of translation, where they need to be able to collaborate with each other, and where we're there to aid them—bespeak out give-and-take groups and caput off various types of frustration. It's a version, in other words, of the flipped classroom approach, a model of instruction associated with math and science, where students sentinel recorded lectures for homework and consummate their assignments, labs, and tests in grade. More complex, higher-order tasks are completed in class, more than routine, more passive ones, outside.

There are many possible variations of this idea, only the central selling indicate for me is that it changes the ready of implicit bargains and imperatives that underlie ancient language instruction, at to the lowest degree as nosotros were practicing it. Consider first vocabulary: in the old regime we said substantially: "know for the brusque-term every word in each text we read. I volition inquire you anything." In the new regime nosotros say, "know for the long-term the about of import words. The rest will be glossed." When information technology comes to reading, we used to say or imply, "sympathize for the test every nuance of the texts we covered in class. I will ask you any detail." In the new system we say, "learn the skills to read any new text yous come across. I will ask for the main points only, and give you clues." What nearly morphology? The stated message was, "You should know all your declensions and conjugations." The unspoken corollary was "Merely if you can interpret the prepared passage without all that you lot volition still pass." With the new method, the daily lived reality is, "If yous don't know what endings hateful yous will exist completely in the dark equally to how these words are related." When information technology comes to grammer and syntax, the old routine assumed they should know all the major constructions as abstract principles, merely with the tacit understanding that this is not really likely to be possible at the intermediate level. The new method says, "exercise recognizing and identifying the almost common grammatical patterns that actually occur in the readings. Unusual things will be glossed." More broadly, the underlying incentives of our usual testing routines was ever, "Learn and English translation of assigned texts and y'all'll exist in pretty good shape." This has now changed to: "know core vocabulary and common grammar common cold and you'll be in pretty good shape."

Now, every organization has its pros and cons. The cons here might be a) that students don't spend quite as much time reading the dictionary as before, so their vocabulary knowledge is not as wide or deep as it should be; b) that the level of attention to specific texts is not as high as in the traditional method; and c) that not as much textile can be covered when grade work done at sight. The first of these (not enough dictionary time) is a existent problem in my view that makes this method not really suitable at the upper levels. At the intermediate level the kind of shut reading that we classicists value so much can exist accomplished through repeated exposure in form to texts initially encountered at sight, and through written assignments and analytical papers. The problem of coverage is alleviated somewhat past the fact that students encounter every bit much or more in the original language than before, thanks to the comprehension worksheets, which cover a whole dissever set of material.

On the pro side, the students seem to like it. Certainly their relationship to grammer is transformed. They suddenly become rather curious about grammatical structures that volition assist them figure out what the heck is going on. With the comprehension worksheets the assumption is that the text makes some kind of sense, rather than what used to exist the default supposition, that it'southward Greek, so it's non actually supposed to make that much sense anyway. While the students are still mastering the cadre vocabulary, one tin divide the vocabulary of a passage into core and non-cadre items, holding the students responsible only for core items. Students obviously like this kind of triage, since information technology helps them focus their try in a style they acknowledge and accept every bit rational. The key advantage to a statistically based core list in my view is really a rhetorical one. In helps generate buy-in. The trouble is that we don't read enough to really master the core contextually in the third semester. Analogous the core with what happens to occur in the passages we happen to read is the chief difficulty of this method. I would argue, even so, that fifty-fifty if you can't teach them the whole core contextually, the effort to do so crucially changes the student'south attitude to vocabulary acquisition, from "how can I maybe ever larn this vast quantity of ridiculous words?" to "Ok, some of these are more important than others, and I take a realistic numerical goal to achieve." The cadre is a possible dream, something that cannot always exist said of the learning goals implicit in the traditional prepared translation method at the intermediate level.

The question of how technology tin can make all this work meliorate is an interesting i. Prof. Major recently published an of import article in CO that addresses this outcome. In my view we need a vocabulary app that focuses on the DCC core, and I want to try to develop that. We need a video Greek grammar along the lines of Khan Academy that volition allow students to absorb circuitous grammatical concepts by repeated viewings at habitation, with many, many examples, annotated with chalk and talk by a competent instructor. And we need more texts that are equipped with handmade vocabulary lists that exclude cadre items, both to facilitate reading and to preserve the incentive to master the core. And this is where our project hopes to make a contribution. Thank you very much, and I look forward to the give-and-take menstruum.

–Chris Francese

HANDOUT:

Greek Cadre Vocabulary Acquisition: A Sight Reading Approach

American Philological Association, Seattle, WA

Fri January 4, 2013

Panel: New Adventures in Greek Pedagogy

Christopher Francese, Professor of Classical Studies, Dickinson College francese@dickinson.edu

References

Dickinson College Commentaries: http://dcc.dickinson.edu/

Latin and Greek texts for reading, with explanatory notes, vocabulary, and graphic, video, and sound elements. Greek texts forthcoming: Callimachus, Aetia (ed. Susan Stephens); Lucian, True History (ed. Stephen Nimis and Evan Hayes).

DCC Cadre Ancient Greek Vocabulary http://dcc.dickinson.edu/vocab/greek-alphabetical

Nigh 500 of the well-nigh common words in ancient Greek, the lemmas that generate approximately 65% of the word forms in a typical Greek text. Created in the summer of 2012 by Christopher Francese and collaborators, using two sets of data:  1. A subset of the comprehensive Thesaurus Linguae Graecae database, including all texts in the database up to AD 200, a total of 20.003 million words (of which the period AD 100–200 accounts for x.235 million). ii. The corpus of Greek authors at Perseus Chicago, which at the fourth dimension our list was developed was approximately 5 million words.

Rachel Clark, "The 80% Rule: Greek Vocabulary in Popular Textbooks," Instruction Classical Languages 1.1 (2009), 67–108.

Wilfred E. Major, "Teaching and Testing Classical Greek in a Digital World," Classical Outlook 89.two (2012), 36–39.

Wilfred E. Major, "It's Non the Size, It'southward the Frequency: The Value of Using a Core Vocabulary in Beginning and Intermediate Greek"  CPL Online four.1 (2008), 1–24. http://world wide web.camws.org/cpl/cplonline/files/Majorcplonline.pdf

Read Iliad i.266-291, and then reply the following in English language, giving the exact Greek that is the basis of your reply:

  1. (lines 266-273)  Who did Nestor fight against, and why did he go?

who

why

  1. (lines 274-279 ) Why should Achilles defer to Agamemnon, in Nestor'south view?
  1. (lines 280-284) What is the meaning and difference between κάρτερος and φέρτερος as Nestor explains it?
  1. (lines 285-291) What four things does Achilles desire, according to Agamemnon?

Notice five prepositional phrases, write them out and interpret, noting the line number, and the case that each preposition takes.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Find five verbs in the imperative mood, write them out and translate, noting the line number and tense of each.

i.

2.

3.

4.

5.

One of the key features of the DCC site is that each text comes equipped with mitt-made running vocabulary lists, containing the main definitions for each give-and-take, but as well the detail one relevant to the context. Very common words are excluded. These take a lot of endeavour to prepare, of course, so I idea it would be good to explain why we do this.

The point is non merely to make information technology easier for readers to find the right lemma backside a given form (something automated tools are still very bad at). It likewise allows for a way of teaching that focuses students' out of course efforts on vocabulary conquering and comprehension, rather than the (much harder chore of) translation. A vocabulary-focused sight reading approach can help fight the blight of Latin and Greek educational activity: students writing downward the "correct" translation in form, and giving it back on tests, which improves their power to memorize English, but doesn't do much for their Latin or Greek.

In essence this is what is now fashionably called a flipped classroom approach, where easier rote tasks are put outside class fourth dimension, and the hardest tasks are washed inside class, collaboratively. In my view the positive psychological effect of this are well worth the effort. Many classical teachers have used this kind of arroyo over the years. My ain particular inspiration is Edwin Post, a professor at De Pauw around the turn of the 20th c., and author of the wonderful Latin at Sight (1895). I know many teachers out there are doing similar things, and would love to hear suggestions and refinements, especially things that DCC could do to better enable this kind of instruction.

The routine as I have worked it out in my own classes (i which of course admits of many variations) is every bit follows:

Students' class preparation consist of a mix of
• vocabulary memorization for passages to be read at sight in class, and
• comprehension/grammar worksheets on other passages (ones not dealt with normally in class).
Class itself consists mainly of
• sight translation, and
• review and discussion of previously sight-read passages
• grammar review as needed
Testing consists of
• sight passages with comprehension and grammer questions (like the worksheets), and
• vocabulary quizzes.

Textual analysis is washed orally in class, through more than interpretive worksheets on previously read passages, and in paper assignments.

The rationale behind doing things this fashion is that:
• students become good at reading Latin or Greek ex tempore. They lose their fear of it. They start to recognize discussion groupings and syntactical relationships, rather than isolated vocabulary items.
• students learn to guess at unknown words based on context rather than becoming stuck on the get-go unfamiliar word, or relying also much on the dictionary
• students have no incentive to memorize English language translations; the incentive is to chief high frequency vocabulary that is likely to be seen again in a new context. These items are learned contextually.
• students get used to identifying grammatical features that actually occur in the text, rather than isolated grammar lessons that don't ever take a clear relationship to reading. Grammer is less a burdensome actress, but as a tool that allows the extracting sense out of a text.
• total quantity of text covered may exist somewhat less in class, merely worksheets permit at least as much reading total equally in the traditional method, probably more

To implement this it is important to
• Have vocabulary lists made up ahead of time. If working toward a loftier frequency master list, dissever the lists into loftier and non-high frequency portions. Otherwise, just accept reasonably comprehensive lists made up. Put information technology all on a web site for them to study before class. Quiz these occasionally first affair in course. No need to practice this every twenty-four hours. They have an incentive to learn vocab. so as non to wait besides clueless in class. Midterm and final involve comprehensive vocabulary review of words already seen.
• Take worksheets fabricated up alee of time. Comprehension questions can exist written in Latin or Greek, and call for responses in Latin or Greek. This is very difficult at first, but helpful in the long run. Comprehension questions in English are somewhat easier, simply get in possible at times for students to merely skim the text looking for primal words. But 1 needs to be resigned to the fact that they will non glean every single nuance of these passages. This is ok. More exposure is better. For the grammar questions, have them spot several instances of a item construction; or manipulate things, due east.k., find several verbs in the imperfect and put in all 6 tenses and translate (this is a mini synopsis). Focus on pronouns, relative pronouns, reflexives, participles, transitive vs. intransitive verbs, finding discussion groupings like transitive verbs and their straight object. This kind of grammatical analysis powerfully reinforces sight reading skill.
• When sight reading in class it is essential to exercise "pre-reading." Requite a little talk nearly what the passage is well-nigh, point out proper names, unusual vocabulary, catchy constructions ahead of time. That manner they go in knowing what it is basically almost, and will not exist phased by knotty bits.
• Make a point of reviewing everything. This gives lots of confidence, reading fluency, vocabulary reinforcement.
• Progress to more sophisticated worksheets that include interpretive tasks, like picking out the most significant or emphatic words, judging the tone, finding literary and rhetorical techniques, inferring what the author wants you to think virtually what information technology being said.
• Throughout information technology is of import to communicate with the students what you are doing and why. The notions of high frequency vocabulary, guessing, getting the gist and not worrying then much about the details, these are things the students tin get backside. With this good volition you can do a lot of more detailed grammatical discussion and textual assay.
• Grading should be low stakes on the worksheets, at least initially

The feedback from my students on this has been good. Certainly the human relationship to grammar is transformed. They suddenly become rather curious about grammatical structures that will assistance them figure out what is going on. With the worksheets the assumption is that the text makes some kind of sense, rather than what used to be the default assumption, that it's Latin (or Greek), so it's not actually supposed to make that much sense anyway, correct?

–Chris Francese