From: Randy Leedy (Rleedy@bju.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 18 2002 - 10:35:36 EDT
At 3:57 PM -0400 4/17/02, Jonathan B. Ferguson wrote:
>Hello,
> Lord willing I will be starting BJU this fall. I plan on buying a
>laptop computer. I would like to buy BibleWorks 5. Does anyone have it?
>If you do, how do you like it? I use BibleWorks 4 at work quite often, so
>I know how BibleWorks is set up. Also, does anyone else have any ideas
>for (Koine) Greek aids for school? I have been studying Greek by myself
>since July of 2001.
To which Carl responded:
>If the BJU you're referring to is Bob Jones, you couldn't do better than
>get in touch in advance with a member of this list with whom you're likely
>to do some work and who has done more than one review of Biblical software:
>Randy Leedy (are you there, Randy?)
Yes, I'm here, sort of. :-)
First, a prospective welcome to BJU for Jonathan. BibleWorks 5 with the BDAG lexicon add-on is an extremely powerful tool, more useful for in-depth work on the text of the Greek NT than anything I know of on the PC side of the world. I haven't kept up with the tutorial-type programs, so I can't say what might be particularly helpful among them.
I think it might be worthwhile, though, for me to observe (at the risk of starting a little ruckus) that I don't think the computer software is very important in the earliest stages of learning Greek. I think the most important thing a student can bring to the task of learning Greek is a desire to know the language itself that is strong enough to drive him to work hard at it. Probably the second most important thing to bring to the task is some understanding of how to learn (perhaps I should phrase it "how to teach oneself"), conditioned by an awareness of one's own most effective style of learning. Third is realism about the time required for the task, with an accompanying commitment to MAKE time for it by clearing other things from the schedule. I fear that too many schools are buckling to schedule pressures and awarding degrees for an amount of work that really consists of very little beyond class attendance. You might be able to get a degree from some schools this way, but you certainly can't acheive the
LEARNING that the degree is supposed to represent that way. You can't learn Greek by attending Greek classes. You must clear your schedule to make time to teach yourself Greek outside of class, using the class sessions as times for activities such as getting overall direction, clarification of difficult points, and evaluation of your achievement. Fourth is probably a basic understanding of how grammar works: the concepts of kernel clause elements (subject, verb, and complement) and the idea that non-kernel clause elements, either as individual words or as multiple words grouped into phrases, provide various kinds of expansion on other elements in the clause. Being able to conceptualize a clause or sentence in terms of interrelated chunks (identifying the chunks--analysis--and then interrelating them properly--synthesis--rather than as a monolithic string of words is, as I see it, a vital skill that must be developed in order to learn an ancient langauge efficiently. Others my disagree, but I simply can't se
e a substitute for it. It follows that the greater a new Greek student's pre-existing ability to do this, the faster progress he will make in mastering the language.
By some means a student in first-year Greek must get his head full of Greek vocabulary, word forms, and awareness of how basic sentence patterns work. While access to good computer software, used judiciously, could certainly prove helpful, I'm not at all convinced that the computer is even capable of playing a very important role. Even the simple drilling exercises that can be done on the computer can be done with equal or greater effectiveness, in my opinion and experience, with a set of quiz cards created by the student and customized to his needs and learning style. The time required, for example, to write out a vocabulary card with a Greek word on one side and its key glosses on the other is minimal, and the writing process itself provides a dimension to the learning that helps to plant the information in one's mind. With a good set of cards like this, the student can review vocabulary (or whatever kind of information the cards contain) without having to be in front of the computer, using bits and pieces
of "dead" time here and there. (I'm assuming that he's not carrying a cell phone and wasting those bits of time with meaningless chatter among friends who themselves should also be doing better things with their time.) The stack of cards can easily be separated into those the student has learned well and those that are more difficult, so the student can carry a small set of troublesome words.
I realize that this functionality can be duplicated on the computer, but why tie yourself to the computer? Some people like to learn visually or via mnemonic cues: such cues can easily be written or sketched on the "answer" side of the card to help solidify them in the memory. I'm not aware of a computer program with this sort of customizability. On top of all that, when you're in front of a computer, you're face-to-face with a whole world of potential distractions. There's also a good bit of overhead in using the computer: software setup and learning curve being significant time drains. So, in my opinion, one is much better off to just buckle down and use the old-fashioned method of doing these things by hand. I found that, once I learned my teachers' quizzing and testing methods, I was able to pretty much duplicate quiz and test conditions in my own study. I devised methods by which I could quiz myself, check myself, and focus on what I didn't yet know, until eventually there was nothing in a given assignm
ent that I didn't know. Then I would let the material sit (usually overnight), and quiz myself over it all again the next day before class to be sure I still had it. I was able to go to class each day confident that the teacher couldn't ask me anything that I didn't know, unless he threw a curve ball of some sort at me. In those cases I could still be confident that I had the knowledge at my disposal that would enable me to detect the curve and give me a pretty good chance of hitting it. I should perhaps add that these comments come from someone who is viewed by colleagues as an aggressive and competent computer user in both study and teaching.
Well, enough for that digression. My review of Logos, BibleWorks, and GRAMCORD is now obsolete in light of new versions of the first two. I have made some effort toward updating it, but I haven't yet cranked it out, and I'm not certain that I ever will. So my advice to you, Jonathan, for what it's worth, is to upgrade to BW 5 and poke around now among the various tutorial programs to see what seems useful. But when you get into that first-year Greek classroom, just buckle down and crank out the work on a day-by-day basis. Don't ever let yourself get behind except in cases of absolute emergency. Beat the stuff into your head through every available opening (eyes, ears, mouth) and even through other avenues (such as writing things out repeatedly). Consider creating new openings if necessary! Review the material regularly. You'll find that after a few semesters of this kind of disciplined work, with or without a computer, you'll have a strong, strong foundation for "the good stuff" that comes with really readin
g the language later on. Use the computer if it helps, but the FIRST time you arrive at class unprepared in spite of having spent at least 30 minutes or an hour in front of a computer calling it Greek study, just forget the computer and do it the time-honored way. There's too much to lose and too little to gain by continuing to fiddle with the computer in search of the magic that probably isn't there anyway. You only get one crack at first-year Greek, and you don't want to waste it fumbling around with keyboard and mouse when paper and pen and brain sweat, under the direction of a competent instructor, are pretty much guaranteed to result in success.
Blessings! (Acts 3:26),
Randy Leedy
Bob Jones University Seminary
Greenville, SC
RLeedy@bju.edu
---
B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:37:24 EDT