Mark,
Greetings! I have done what you are suggesting above about 3
or 4 times. From my little experience in those endeavors, I offer
this for what it is worth:
1) When I took a beginning Greek class, the class met 5 times
a week. The constant, repetitive nature of meeting 5x a week
helps the student learn a foreign language. In teaching a
beginning Greek class in a church setting that meets only once
a week has its obvious problems: the lack of repetition needed
in learning, not only a new alpha beta, but also, a new language.
2) When I took a beginning Greek class, I would spend about 2
hours a night in homework memorizing the letters, vocabulary,
verb forms, etc. In a church setting, most of the students will
already have full lives (working 5 days a week, other activities,
etc.) in which the students will have a hard time spending more
than an hour or two during the entire week trying to learn his
lesson for that week. Thus, most students enter class unprepared
and the class time is spent trying to learn what the students
should have already learned at home.
3) Going from one lesson to the next means that the previous
lesson needs to be solid in the students mind so that the
foundation is firm on which the next lesson is built. Without
a firm foundation (almost sounds biblical<g>) in some point
in time, the house of cards comes crashing in on the student.
The student then becomes lost because he/she is unable to
sort and assimilate new information. Thus, frustration sets in
and drop outs occur.
4) If I were to do another beginning Greek class, I believe the
approach that I would take is to learn the alpha beta, learn
different verb forms, etc., and the usage of Greek Language
Helps (e.g., Lexicons, Concordances, Grammars, etc.). I
believe that would fill up a 13 week period of study and
probably would be the most useful in the setting that you
are proposing. This will not make them Greek Scholars
by any stretch of the imagination, but would probably make
best use of the time allotted for such study.
I hope some of this is helpful to you,
Denny
*********Denny A. Diehl*********
2030 Murray, Wichita KS 67212
****DennyDiehl@Juno.com****