Beginning Greek Class, Fall, 2005

I will be teaching a course on beginning Greek this Fall. Luckily, this is not my first time. While at DTS I was the NT department tutor for a couple of years, and got to fill in for professors every once in a while. Great fun. A few years ago I taught a Greek class while I was at Believer’s Chapel. It is time for me to do it again. It has been too long and I enjoy it too much.

I’ll have more details later on, but here are a few points about the class:

• It will be held in the Parker, TX, area (suburb of Dallas), probably at First Baptist Church of Parker. It is open to anyone who can attend the classes, though I’m going to put a minimum age of around Junior High or a little lower, with no maximum age. Last time one of the student’s daughters attended the class and did very well, and she wasn’t near Junior High at the time. Kids learn this stuff so much more easily than we adults do... Note, this is not limited to members of FBC Parker. It is only limited to those who live close enough to meet once a week.
• It will likely be free, though it may not be. If it does cost $, it won’t be much at all. Mainly the idea behind this is psychological. When someone commits money, it not only shows their commitment, but it is also an encouragement to stick with it. After all, who likes to lose money? But, I’m not sure what we’re going to do. If you can’t afford anything and you are intested, talk to me anyway.
• We will probably max out the class at around 20.
• We will probably meet once a week for a long session together, with another short meeting time online during the week.
• Method: mostly inductive. If you have taken a course on Greek before, it is probably not done inductively. So this will be quite a bit different. Not completely inductive, but more so than deductive. If you don’t know what that means, think inductive = more focus on translation and informal language acquisition and deductive = more focused and organized with a more formal air to it. Yes, I know, those are poor definitions. But I’m not trying to write a book here.
• This is for those who have had no experience with any foreign language, or for those who need to brush up on their Greek.
• This is not a class on biblical Greek, though there will be a lot of biblical Greek throughout. I am quite convinced that familiarity with the English translations is a huge hindrance to learning based off of the NT. We will be focusing on the Greek during the time period of the NT. Material will include NT texts, secular koine texts, texts from the Apostolic Fathers, and fabricated texts.
• This will be treated like a class. There will be assignments. There will be grades. If the work is not getting done, I will remove you from the class. There are not auditors. You are in the class all the way, or not at all.
• The class is a year long. There will probably be a second year class as well. The first will concentrate on rudiments, vocabulary, translation, and paradigms (in roughly that order of importance). The second will almost be entirely devoted to translation, syntax, and analysis. As I said before, the first will not focus on biblical Greek. The second I will leave up to the class. Since they will have the rudiments down, we could focus mostly on biblical Greek at that point. But that’s up to the class.

We will probably start having information meeetings in August, and will begin the class at the beginning of September. If you want more information, send me an email.