Beginning Greek Students:
The Six Weeks Window of Opportunity

Dorothy A. Dvorsky-Rohner (University of North Carolina, Asheville)

The first six weeks of a beginning Greek class present an opportunity to 
hook students to a Classics’ major. But the road to success for retention of those students, let alone exciting them with the value of a Classics major, holds many mine fields: a first time encounter with an inflected language, a strange alphabet etc. Strategies for retention apprise us of successful approaches to retention, such as engaged learning. (Goode, Riehl-2006, Bonwell and Eison-1991, Silberman–1996) The devil is in the details. How do we effectively engage beginning Greek students when we are not going to be discussing the virtues of the first declension, but rather motivating them to memorize endings, to apply usage, and to love doing it?  That is the challenge.

This paper establishes the need for engaged learning and provides a series of activities which may be used as pedagogical tools. Activities are presented through visuals and student participation.

A study by National Training Laboratories, Bethel, ME stated that an engaged learning methodology provides the most effective tool for learning. The study notes these averages of learning retention, which in our case means student retention: lecture 5%, reading 10%, audio-visual 20%, demonstration 30%, practice by doing 75%, teaching others and immediate use of learning 90%.  Although the study looked at retention of learning, it can be argued that when a beginning student is not retaining information, that student is more likely to drop in the first six weeks. So what to do?

Setting the stage for success must be done on the first day.  The environment of the classroom, as an organic whole, as a safe place to explore our new secret code, where mistakes are part of the learning process, and success of one is success of all must be established on the first day. 'Greek is fun and easy,' is the class motto.

Activities addressing all three learning styles need to be incorporated in each new bit of material. Gearing activities to new material moves the student from passive recipient to active learner. Learning the Greek alphabet on the first day via a football cheer, e.g., shakes up expectations and yet remains appropriate.

Presentation of new material must be viewed as fun and not overwhelming. Looking at new material on a “need to know“  basis gives students what they need and does not overwhelm them with details.  Active learning stresses clear presentation of concepts by examples and then immediate use by students.  By the second class day students learn the basic concepts of this inflected language via the conjugation of êgv with a noun. Students also participate in creating sentences with lÊv.  The students again observe the verb in action with a noun. Students begin translating simple sentences and find to their surprise that they can read Greek on the second day.

Knowledge is built incrementally. Students teach their peers via weekly reviews on grammatical points. Students pair to do exercises in class to share their knowledge.  Cultural events further engage the student in ownership of Greek and their invested interest in the class.