Projects
by Department | Proposal
Guidelines | LTLC
Homepage
GREEK LESSONS USING SUPERMACLANG
General:
When I was hired for this position teaching Greek in the Classics
Department last spring, it was with the understanding that one
of the first paedogogical projects would be writing computer drills
for the beginning Greek sequence. Early on I saw Joel's SuperMacLang
exercises that he had been writing for beginning Latin, and once
I saw this I was quite excited at the prospect of having another
means of drilling students and encouraging them to learn the basics
of Greek morphology. I attended the SuperMacLang workshop at Wellesley
College in June, and had my first lesson in writing for this software
at the same time that I had some of my first contact with other
Wheaton language faculty. I considered it an auspicious beginning.
I have now, at the end of the first semester of this experiment,
met with mixed results, but overall I am pleased and I see the
long range potential for a coherent, integrated approach to teaching
beginning Greek. Once Joel successfully made arrangements for
procuring special dispensation for the site license for the GreekKeys
software that is necessary to type Greek on a keyboard with Roman
characters, I started writing exercises. The first stumbling block
I then encountered was a substantial one. GreekKeys is a type
of software that is written for word processing; SuperMacLang
was not compatible with it. I could write exercises and get the
Greek font on the screen, but i could find no way to write exercises
in which the students could type in Greek characters, the way
Joel's students are able to type in Latin words or endings in
his drills. The SuperMacLang software could not process --or even
recognize-- the different symbols in the Greek alphabet as they
were mapped by the GreekKeys software.
I ended up talking to the SuperMacLang software developer at Dartmouth,
Otmar Foelsche. Otmar simply confirmed what my own experience
had been, and said that the current software had not been designed
for use with non-Roman alphabets. He then put me in touch with
a member of the Dartmouth Classics department who had used SuperMacLang
in the past to teach Greek, Bill Scott. I learned a good deal
from Prof. Scott's perspective and experience. He pointed out
to me that it was not necessarily a desirable thing to make elementary
Greek students learn to type Greek on a Roman keyboard.
Having then changed my initial assumptions about how I would use
the software (I had planned on getting students to generate forms
-- conjugations and declensions -- one of the more time-consuming
and tedious tasks in learning this ancient language), I went back
to the software package itself and considered its capabilities.
I realized that there were real and valuable exercises that I
could write that would reinforce the students' visual recognition
of the language and its forms. Instead of fill-in-the-blank exercises,
I worked on developing multiple choice and especially (my current
favorite) elaborate column-matching exercises that would drill
and test their facility with whatever material we were currently
working on.
It took far too long for me to reach this point in my own learning
process, and it wasn't until October that I had material up and
running for my students. After teaching a few classes in the computer
lab and training students how to download all the software (extra
steps were required since GreekKeys is not installed on all the
college micro-computers), for each of the chapters of our textbook
I wrote two sets of exercises: one drill they could take in practice
mode, and one quiz, based on the drill exercise, and intended
to supplement the many written quizes that I give in class. I
became increasingly grateful for this opportunity to quiz students
on-line, instead of having to allot so much time for quiz taking
in class.
I strongly feel that I am still learning how to best make use
of this software's strengths, given the limitations I am faced
with. I have tried to work with the students in class as well
in the labs, to learn which types of exercises are the most beneficial
for them. Learning elementary Greek involves vast amounts of memorization.
Many students start Greek not really even knowing how they, personally,
best learn by rote. From my perspective, SuperMacLang can offer
them yet another means, in addition to oral work in class, and
written work in class and written homework, to memorize, recognize
and identity the forms and patterns of the language. I do not
think this alone in The Answer to teaching Greek, but when used
alongside other traditional methods, I strongly believe the students
will benefit and learn the material more thoroughly. This in turn
will enable them to read and comprehend Greek prose with increasing
ease and speed.
I am looking forward to working more on this project in the spring,
and making the process easier and more valuable for the students.
Class evaluations indicated that some of the students found the
computer assignments to be the weakest aspect of the class. They
appear to view these assignments as just another hoop to jump
through; these same students also thought that in general I quized
them too frequently.
Anecdcotally I know that some students who are not adept with
computers have problems loading the GreekKeys software onto their
machine. If GreekKeys is not properly installed then the exercises
I have written look like gibberish on their screen. They then
have another excuse for why they have not finished their homework,
or handed in a quiz. Anecdotally I also know that the better students
complete the assignments conscientiously, and do better on written
quizes and tests. In all, this is no surprise.
This spring I plan to work at making the drills and quizes a more
integral part of the structure of the course, as well as of my
teaching methodologies. Now that I know the strengths and limitations
of the software, I believe I will have better direction. My goal
is to write exercises most students will _want_ to do regularly,
as a matter of course in their preparing for class. I would like
to assess the students' responses to these exercises once near
the start of the term, and then again at the end. I will then
be better able to judge for myself how this first year of teaching
with SuperMacLang has gone, and how to change it again in the
fall. Since I am planning to Report also to the APA, the professional
society of classicists Joel and I belong to, I will be needing
specific feedback from my students as well as my colleagues. I
look forward to hearing the experiences of others in this group,
and meeting with you soon.
Last updated
on 1/26/99; 1:55:38 PM
Send questions about this page to: Nancy
Evans
or contact Wheaton
College.