[30] How To Teach Koine Greek Properly

Summary:

• I previously shared my goal of relearning Koine Greek alongside Modern Greek to see how they benefit each other.
• I’ve been reflecting on my course and learning materials while asking myself how it can be better taught.
• One of the main problems is that students are expected to translate advanced, deeply abstract concepts within a very short amount of time.
• No modern language course starts from zero knowledge and expects advanced level comprehension in a 12 week span – so why should Koine be any different?
• Once again I blame grammar study and a backward approach to learning.
• Ancient languages must – where possible – be learned as living languages. Translation should be taught after a measure of fluency is already reached.
• The key is to learn through chunking – learning patterns and blocks rather than rules.
• Highly repetitive listening to small bites is vital.

Related blog post:

I wrote about the problem with Koine Greek courses here.

Resources:

Visit my personal list of top Koine Greek resources.