Modernizing Classical Language Education: Communicative Language Teaching & Educational Technology Integration in Classical Greek
Modernizing Classical Language Education: Communicative Language Teaching & Educational Technology Integration in Classical Greek
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Apostolos Koutropoulos
University of Massachusetts Boston
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Koutropoulos, Apostolos (2011) "Modernizing Classical Language Education: Communicative Language Teaching & Educational
Technology Integration in Classical Greek," Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge: Vol. 9: Iss. 3, Article 6.
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HUMAN ARCHITECTURE: JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE
A Publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)
ISSN: 1540-5699. © Copyright by Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press) and authors. All Rights Reserved.
HUMAN
ARCHITECTURE
Journal of the Sociology of Self-
Apostolos Koutropoulos
University of Massachusetts Boston
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
[email protected]
Abstract: Classical language education has changed little over the past three decades despite
advances in academic technology and advances in our understanding of both second language
acquisition and human development. This paper proposes a modification to classical language
teaching and the classical language curriculum based on findings of second language acquisition
research, as well as factoring in observational data of students taking an introductory course in
Ancient Greek.
55 HUMAN ARCHITECTURE: JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE, IX, 3, SUMMER 2011, 55-70
56 APOSTOLOS KOUTROPOULOS
Grammar Translation approach; this was of class time was spent going over the drills
the same approach used when I took Clas- that students had done for homework.
sical Greek a number of years ago. The The Grammar Translation method
Grammar Translation approach also views language teaching as consisting of
appears to be favored by many Classicists little more than memorizing rules and facts
teaching Greek and Latin (Lafleur, 1998). in order to understand and manipulate the
The Grammar Translation method, also morphology and syntax of the target
known as the Prussian Method in the US language (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). This
(Richards & Rodgers, 2001), is interesting in was also something that was seen in my
that it is a method with no theory; there is observations of the Classical Greek course
no literature that offers a rationale or justi- in the fall 2010 semester. Even though the
fication for using it, or that attempts to instruction observed wasn’t purely Gram-
relate it to issues in linguistics, educational mar Translation, the instructor did mention
theory or psychology (Richards & Rodgers, that students could be helped if they
2001). Focusing on forms seems to me to be memorized groupings of things—like, for
more of a psychological need to build up to example, a verb’s principal parts. I inter-
the level where students are considered preted this as that memorization was high-
able to read on their own; this building up to lighted as a major learning strategy on the
entails a focus on, and mastery of, the part of the learner. There were, throughout
grammar before students are considered the course, a number of interesting discus-
ready to tackle authentic texts. sions tying in history, sociology, and sociol-
The primary goal of the Grammar inguistic factors in language use, as far as
Translation approach is for students to Classical Greek was concerned; however
study a language in order to read its litera- these were few and far in between when
ture, or benefit from the mental discipline compared to the frequency of drills and
and intellectual development resulting form pattern practice and they often
from the study of another language. The happened in conversations between
target language is first approached though students and the instructor before and after
a detailed analysis of the language’s gram- class and they were not part of the formal
mar rules, followed by application of this curriculum.
knowledge to the task of translating The Grammar Translation method can
sentences and texts into and out of the cause frustration in students (Richards &
target language (Richards & Rodgers, Rodgers, 2001), and I did notice some
2001). I can think of numerous examples of grammar frustration in the course,
this in both my original experience as a although frustration seemed to be miti-
learner of Classical Greek and as an gated by how metalinguistically developed
observer of a class of students learning the students were. It seemed that students
Classical Greek during the fall 2010 semes- who had some language education in their
ter. The average learning module begins background were better able to deal with
with a thorough explanation of the gram- this language teaching approach, and
matical topic at hand, followed by practice perhaps these students used previously
drills, and ultimately culminating in trans- acquired schemata (Carell & Eisterhold,
lating sentences from Greek to English and 1988) to process new forms of a different
English to Greek8. A considerable amount target language. Even those students,
however, had issues with the way the
instructional approach dealt with
8 Translation exercises in my recent course content—that is having a syllabus that is
tended to have more items from Greek to En-
glish, than the English to Greek. organized by grammar points and focusing
on sentence level translation (Richards & sentence, but not necessarily comfortable
Rodgers, 2001). with deciphering the meaning of the whole
As the semester progressed, even sentence.
students with a somewhat developed
metalinguistic awareness expressed prob- II. REBOOT: COMMUNICATIVE
lems with “remembering” all the forms
LANGUAGE TEACHING IN CLASSICS
because they tended to not use all of them.
They worked on a specific form until their
practice culminated to a test of their knowl- The current approach to teaching Clas-
edge, and then they moved to another sical Greek has certain shortcomings: 1) It is
grammatical topic that made little explicit not based on any linguistic, educational or
connection to items learned in previous psychological theory of learning; 2) it is
lessons. Even though language is cumula- focused on reading and writing with little
tive in nature and you cannot move on to or no systematic attention paid to speaking
the next steps without using some of the or listening; and 3) it can cause frustration
rules that you have learned before, the for learners, especially those that are not as
student comments seemed to imply that metalinguistically aware as more
they felt they were not doing more with the “advanced” language learners. It seems
language that necessitated going back to previ- clear, therefore, that a new approach is
ously learned materials and thus having more necessary if we are to truly educate our
opportunities to practice. learners in the Classics. This revamped
Finally, the role of the instructor in a approach not only has the potential to help
Grammar Translation approach to Classics majors, but it can potentially make
language learning is what Lee & VanPatten Classics more approachable to non-majors,
(2003) call an “Atlas.” The instructor is the thus piquing the interest of more students
main speaker and presenter of information and bringing more people into the field.
in the class. The model is fundamentally The methodology proposed here is
one where the teacher is essentially a based on the principles of Communicative
broadcaster of information and the Language Teaching.
students are receivers of this information.
The instructor in my course did engage 1. Teaching Methodology
students and tried to get more of the
Communicative Language Teaching
students involved as the semester was
(CLT) is borne out of the need to focus on
underway, mostly by trying to access their
communicative proficiency in language
prior knowledge and having them try to
teaching rather than a mere mastery of
connect their previous knowledge of Greek
structures (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). The
(acquired earlier on in the semester) to
CLT approach aims to make communica-
what they were learning later on. It seems
tive competence the goal of language teach-
to me that the students, at that point in the
ing and to develop procedures for teaching
semester, were used to the “broadcast”
the four language skills (reading, writing,
method, a pace which was set earlier in the
speaking, and listening) that acknowledge
semester, and it was not as easy to urge
the interdependence of language and
them to contribute later on in the semester
communication. Communicative compe-
since the tone was already set. I also believe
tence (Hymes, 1972 in Richards & Rodgers,
that part of the students’ reluctance to
2001) is defined as what the speaker needs
speak may have been affective in that they
to know in order to be able communicate in
may have felt comfortable with under-
a speech community; this requires both
standing the individual parts of the
knowledge and the ability to use language through the prism of that ancient culture
with respect to what is possible, feasible, and not through our own modern biases. I
and appropriate in a language, and knowl- would submit that the acts of reading and
edge as to whether something (a particular attempting to understand are willful acts of
expression or grammatical construction for communication on the part of both the reader
instance) is indeed done. and the writer.
Canale & Swain (1980, in Richards & John Firth, a British applied linguist,
Rodgers, 2001) further expand this defini- stressed that language needs to be studied
tion to include four subcomponents: (1) in the broader sociocultural context of its
Grammatical competence, which is essen- use, which included participants, their
tially Hymes’ “what is possible”; (2) Socio- behavior, beliefs, the objects of linguistic
linguistic competence, i.e., the discussion and word choice (Wardhaugh,
understanding of roles relationships and 2009); thus communication does exist
the shared information of the participants outside of language. Art for example is a
and the communicative purpose of the medium for communication. Everyday
interaction; (3) Discourse competence, that objects are also acts of communication. For
is, the interpretation of individual message this reason, an approach to teaching Classi-
elements in terms of their interconnected- cal languages should include culturally
ness and how meaning is represented in authentic realia in the process of teaching
relationship to the discourse of the text; and language. Little et al. (1989, in Mishan,
(4) Strategic competence, which is about 2005), describe culturally authentic realia
coping strategies that communicators use as objects that are created to fulfill some
to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair and social purpose within a social context of the
redirect communication. All of these are language community in which they are
important in modern languages, but they found. Written language, and written texts,
are important in classical languages as well. also don’t exist in a vacuum. They are influ-
Focusing on solely grammatical form enced both by spoken language and by the
means that, at best, you are ignoring three time and society in which the language
out of four competencies that learners are developed. For this reason it is important to
required to have to be competent users of a treat classical languages as spoken
language. languages as well, so that we may better
When one mentions “communication” understand the context in which they were
as the focus of anything, the immediate spoken. Epic poems like The Odyssey were
mental image generated by the person originally spoken. Plays were written to be
listening to you is that of speech. Perhaps performed; as such they would be a good
this is the case because all languages are source to get us to think more about how the
spoken, but not all languages are written; ancients spoke, what they spoke about and
as a matter of fact most of the world’s in what contexts. Works meant for public
languages exist in only spoken form performance can tell us a lot about the
(Lewis, 2009). Communication, however, is social climate at the time and a city’s
not just in speech. Communication exists in Weltanschauung. One of the most character-
the written texts of ancient authors that we istic features of CLT is that it pays system-
want to study; these authors are communi- atic attention to function, as well as
cating with us through their writings. structural aspects of language (Littlewood,
Granted, this communication is one way but 1981, in Richards & Rodgers, 2001), by
we do have methods of interacting with the exploring the spoken language, in addition
text to get to the underlying meaning— to the written language; we are better able
viewing what ancient writers wrote to understand how the language was used,
which in turn helps us better understand gations and noun inflections. Savignon
what we are reading in those classical (1983, in Richards & Rodgers, 2001) rejects
works. the notion that learners must first gain
Luckily for us, the ancient Greeks have control over individual skills such as
left behind statues, coins, vases, architec- pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary
ture and more things that we can use to before applying them in communicative
integrate culture into the language learning tasks; she instead advocates providing
curriculum. It is important to explore communicative practice from the start of
culture as an integrated part of language instruction.
learning because, as Bernstein (in Ward- The CLT environment is learner-
haugh, 2009) puts it, there is a cyclical rela- centered. This is a departure from the
tionship between language and culture: teacher-centered Grammar Translation
language influences culture, and in turn classroom. The instructor is no longer, what
culture influences language. You cannot Lee & VanPatten (2003) term, an “Atlas.”
hope to fully understand an ancient text The instructor’s role changes from a broad-
without knowing the cultural context in caster of information, commonly referred
which events took place. to in academia as “the sage on the stage,” to
With communication, and not morpho- that of a facilitator of the communications
logical forms, as the focus, learners can process, and an independent participant in
excel in the task of learning a Classical the learning-teaching group. The CLT
language. As Savignon (1972, in Lee & approach also stresses a cooperative
VanPatten, 2003) writes, in her study she approach to learning. This may cause some
found that people learn to communicate by confusion or resentment on the part of the
practicing communication. In her study, learner because learners do bring their
groups, with different learning styles, preconceptions with what language learn-
learning French, were more successful in ing looks like into the classroom and they
learning the language using the CLT may be expecting a sage on the stage to just
approach than the audiolingual method9. If download all the information about
you are learning to use a tool (in this case language that they need into their minds
language) with an end-goal in mind, and (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). In addition, in
you are making progress toward that end order to teach language, we don’t simply
goal while learning to use the tool, you are need grammarians, we need capable
much more successful in your task of learn- subject matter experts of the ancient world.
ing the tool since you can see an immedi- The instructors teaching Classical
ately demonstrable purpose. The notion of languages are experts in the Classical
direct, rather than delayed, practice of World, so the question is why do we still
communicative acts is central to most CLT relegate them to just being grammarians?
interpretations (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Through CLT the totality of their skills can
This de-emphasis on forms, however, be used for the benefit of the learner.
brings questions like “don’t you need to
first gain mastery of grammatical skills 2. Technology Integration
before you can apply them?” Generally
these “grammatical skills” are an allusion Using technology to improve and
to morphological elements like tense conju- enhance language teaching and learning is
not a new idea in the Classics field (LaFleur,
9 The Audiolingual Method, aka “Army 1998; McManus, 2001; McManus & Rubino
Method,” comes after Grammar Translation and 2003; Reinhard, 2009). The question then
is based on a behaviorist methodology utilizing becomes how does one best utilize both
a lot of drills to form correct habits.
general information technology and educa- Roman world (Crane, 2010). In its collec-
tional technology available to enhance our tion one can find works by ancient Greek
learning outcomes? In years past there was and Roman authors, as well as some visual
a special problem with using educational material of art and architecture. In addi-
IT for teaching Greek given that it uses a tion, there are great tools for textual analy-
non-Latin alphabet. This caused special sis and vocabulary help. Depending on the
problems for the creation of materials as level of the learner and on the activity, this
well as student work. With the advent of tool can be used sparingly or extensively.
Unicode character sets, all computers The idea for using Perseus as a peda-
created within the past eight years now gogical tool is also not a new one (Crane &
have the capacity to display and produce Mylonas, 1988; Marchionni & Crane, 1994).
Greek characters and accents without any The design of Perseus is compatible with
special software. This wide availability our view of language learning, namely that
makes the job of the instructor easier to we are looking at primary sources, and
implement exercises using educational culturally authentic realia; as opposed to
technology to enhance their curriculum. having a filtered view of these items
With this wide availability comes a through some textbook or “expert.” The
question on just how to use the technology designers of Perseus “view knowledge as a
to improve the curriculum. Through the process and flow of relationships rather
use of the Grammar Translation methodol- than as compartmentalized and discreet
ogy, the pitfall is that we use it for “hyper- concepts” (Marchionni & Crane, 1994). This
ote,” that is, just doing the same old thing connectivist view of knowledge and learn-
that students are doing in paper and pencil ing coincides with our methodology for
form now—memorizing forms and filling language learning where the teacher is no
out grammar tables (Hill, 2003). This use of longer the atlas, but a participant in co-
technology for effective teaching and learn- constructing knowledge.
ing is largely a failure, as it is reproducing a Using Perseus, early learners can, for
form that already exists, and doesn’t work example, use the word lookup tool to figure
very well! With the advent of “social” out what unknown words mean while
media, technologies such as blogs, wikis, more advanced learners could go to the
podcasts, and free video hosting, such as original texts and do searches to spot trends
YouTube, we now have many tools on our in language use within an author’s works,
palette to create an educational solution or examine language use among multiple
that coincide with the theoretical underpin- authors (Marchionni & Crane, 1994).
nings of our methodology, CLT—ones that Knowing what a student’s current level of
coincide with the technical level of compe- technological knowledge is in a 101 course
tence of our learners. can help instructors tailor the use of
Perseus for their class, and as students
Perseus progress to more advanced language
classes the instructor can incorporate tech-
When Classicists, and Humanists in nology literacy into their curriculum so that
general, think of a major computerized students become more sophisticated users
resource for resources dealing with the of the technology.
classical Greek and Roman world they
think of the Perseus Project. The Perseus Learning Communities
Project isn’t a new kid on the block. The
project started in 1985 and it covers the The central organizing principle for
history, literature and culture of the Greco- our educational technology use revolves
around the use of technology that facilitates and sustaining textual (and, increasingly,
a revamped Classics classroom, a class- visual and auditory) resources” (Lund,
room conceived as a community of prac- 2008). Depending on the language level of
tice. Communities of practice “are formed the learner wikis could be used as a tool to
by people who engage in a process of supplement others tools. For example, the
collective learning in a shared domain of use and analysis of language corpora (Kalt-
human endeavor” (Wegner, 1998). enböck & Mehlmauer-Larcher, 2005; Braun,
Communities of practice are about joint 2005; Braun, 2007) have been shown to help
practice, shared repertoire and mutual with language acquisition. Wikis could be
engagement (Wegner, 2006). Communities used to collectively organize knowledge
of practice are thus compatible with our gained through the use of such corpora,
Vygotskian view of knowledge and human along with drawing upon relevant exam-
learning using the CLT approach—our ples form these sources.
classroom thus is a community of practice. Since we don’t want to cut out gram-
Since our class only meets three times mar instruction completely from our
per week, it is worthwhile extending our curriculum because it is an important part
implicit in-class community of practice to of language competence (Larsen-Freeman,
one that is assisted through technology 1997; Richards & Rogers, 2001), we could
mediation and thus enables learners and use an exercise where students develop
facilitators to meet, interact and socially their own grammatical definitions (Lloyd,
construct knowledge when the class is not 2005) and use a wiki to take a solitary activ-
officially in session (Koutropoulos, 2010). ity and transform it into one where
These days there are many tools to enable students collaborate with each other, with
us to create such online communities; and guidance from the instructor, in order to
the tool of preference for educators appears come up with definitions of grammar that
to be a service called Ning (Reinhard, 2009; are factual and make sense to them. Since
Koutropoulos, 2010; Sorenos, 2010). grammar is essentially hypertext (Beau-
A Ning community can bring together doin, 2004)—a web of rules which are
novice learners, learners just starting their connected and dependent on one
learning of Classical Greek, and more expe- another—instead of having grammar rules
rienced learners, such as learners in upper handed down from instructor, or textbook,
level undergraduate courses and graduate like laws coming down from mount Sinai,
level courses, for mutual learning, and these rules can be co-constructed with the
resource sharing, as well as social engage- help of the instructor. This gives students a
ments. Through the use of a Ning commu- sense of ownership in the process and the
nity as central jumping off point we can outcome, instead of being outside of the
also use other Web 2.0 technologies such as process and just memorizing rules
wikis, blogs and audiovisual means like provided by someone else—wikis can be an
podcasts and videos on YouTube. instrument which enables this collabora-
tion outside the classroom.
Wikis
Blogs & Microblogs
A wiki can be characterized as a
website that can be accessed and edited by With an acknowledgement of the
many people, giving them the ability to importance of culturally authentic materi-
collaborate and co-construct knowledge. als (Kramsch, 1993, 2000), blogs and
Wikis in language learning hold “a poten- microblogs have been invaluable resources
tial for collectively producing, organizing in the modern language classroom. We can
see many uses of these services in recent al., 2009) where researchers are looking at
research (Murray & Hourigan, 2008; Borau the effects of computer mediated commu-
et al., 2009; Scinicariello, 2010; Byrne, 2010;) nication and interaction on learning and
such as getting news from the target using the language. In classical languages,
language country, seeing what speakers of mostly due to the reliance on the Grammar
the language are saying, and getting Translation method, we do not see the use
authentic language use in context. With of video as a way to enhance learning in the
classical languages we cannot exactly classroom.
follow the same approach considering the One example, used in the [Schole]
fact that there are no ancient Greeks on the community (Sorenos, 2010), is the use of
Internet blogging and tweeting about their video-grams sent from member to member
daily lives; thus blogs and microblogs (like as a means of communicating. While this is
twitter) aren’t a sources for authentic input a novel use of the technology and mimics
and we must use them in a slightly differ- techniques used in modern languages
ent fashion than they are in modern classrooms, the environment is ripe for
languages. coming up with new uses of video to teach
At all levels of language learning blogs Classics.
can also be used as a means to provide both
the learner and the instructor with a barom- III. POTENTIAL HURDLES
eter to gauge how the language learning
process is going. Learners could use a blog,
No change is without some potential
as was originally intended, as a journal to
hurdles to overcome. One of the main
track their progress, their successes and
hurdles that I foresee is that this change in
their frustrations. This can help the instruc-
how classical languages are taught needs to
tor with modifying the class as needed and
be implemented throughout the curricu-
with providing additional or alternate
lum in order for it to be effective. It would
resources to help the student with their
be really unfortunate if students in Greek
language learning goals. Depending on the
101 were taught using this methodology,
class, microblogs can be used as a way to
only to be going back to a Grammar Trans-
get students into the role of a protagonist in
lation model with Greek 102. When imple-
a work that they are reading. For example if
menting such a change not only do all
there is a course devoted to the Iliad,
faculty need to be on-board, but the curric-
students can take the role of Helen, Odys-
ulum needs to be redesigned in order to
seus, Paris (and others) and tweet, in Greek,
accommodate the new methodology. For
as if they were them—thus providing some
instance, one may be able to cram all of the
sort of insight into how students are inter-
Classical Greek grammar in four semesters
preting that character through Homer’s
using the Grammar Translation approach,
writings.
but when a more communicative method is
Audio & Video employed, more time will be taken up for
meaningful communication drills than
One of the innovations of the broader morpheme manipulation drills; this means
(online) Classical Greek learning commu- that perhaps fifth and sixth semester Greek
nity (Sorenos, 2010) is their use of audiovi- courses need to be implemented in addi-
sual means for learning the language and tion to reworking the four existing courses.
interacting in it! In modern languages we The second sticky point might be the
see many examples of research (Oxford, actual pronunciation of Greek. This is a
2009; Dukate & Lomicka, 2009; Abdous et topic that is beyond the scope of this paper,
but as we can see through a cursory look at about “what is communication” aside, a
research and commentary on the issue compelling reason for choosing to speak
(Snow, 1890; Allen, 1987; Caragounis, 1995; the language comes from Swain’s Compre-
Dillon, 2001; Daitz, 2002), scholars disagree hensible Output Hypothesis (Swain 1985 &
on what classical Greek sounded like and 1995, in Mitchell &Myles, 2004). Swain
what we should be teaching in school. The argues that when we read texts (which is
[Schole] community (Sorenos, 2010) tackles what Classical Language Learning has
this by asking members what pronuncia- been geared toward) we only partly
tion the member uses when she or he process those foreign language texts. In
speaks. If learners know of some of the order to drive forward the learner’s
possibilities, they may be able to communi- linguistic development, that learner needs
cate with others even when they are using to produce language. In her Comprehensible
different pronunciations. The analogy to Output Hypothesis she states that when
this can be seen in modern day English learners produce language they notice
where there are many potential pronuncia- when they don’t know something they are
tions for the same language. Schools trying to express; and they hypothesize and
around the world teaching ESL teach all test language structures. If the message that
different kinds of pronunciation but this10 the learner tries to convey is received, but
doesn’t necessarily impede learners. Learn- not understood, this, in theory, pushes the
ers who are aware of the differences in learner to prod at their own learning and
pronunciation can cope with the same writ- help them along their linguistic develop-
ten words sounding different depending ment. If the message conveyed is grammat-
on the speaker’s preferred pronunciation. ically wrong, and therefore not
Ancient Greek shouldn’t be any different. comprehensible, the learner will have to
My recommendation, to keep things reformulate to correct the grammar of their
simple, is that the department ought to utterance in order to make it comprehensi-
adopt a pronunciation and have faculty use ble to the hearer. If the utterance is correct,
it throughout the curriculum. Whether one but it is not understood because of some
uses the Restored pronunciation, the other factor, the speaker-learner will have
Modern, the Pontic, or the pronunciation of to rephrase his or her utterance so that the
the recently discovered Romeyka, dialect of act of communication can continue. Having
Greek (Kathimerini, 2010), the important students perform these communicative
thing is to pick one and use it throughout exchanges in real-time, through speaking,
the curriculum because it will be used as a gives students an opportunity to think in
vehicle for communication. the language they are learning in smaller
A third sticky point is the question of chunks of information, as opposed to
whether or not we really need to speak the merely passively translating sentences and
language in order to learn it. In Modern passages from Ancient Greek to an English
Languages it seems like a silly proposition that students don’t necessarily connect
to not speak the language, so why is it so with in their own lives.
with Classical Languages? All discussions The last hurdle to tackle are the
assumptions from students themselves. If
10 An example to this is my own personal students have taken Latin, or Greek before,
experience in (re)learning English. When I was they’ve surely been exposed to the Gram-
learning English in Greece, the pronunciation
used by instructors and fellow students was Re- mar Translation method. They may also
ceived Pronunciation. When I was in high thrive in it because they’ve learned to learn
school in the US, the pronunciation in my ESL with that method. For instance, we see that
classes was what may be thought of as “generic”
or “news anchor” American. in some studies (Braun, 2007) students
were expecting grammar rules to be explic- students this semester has shown. Various
itly taught. Even though post-instruction Web 2.0 technology are great tools to use in
tests showed that the group that received our language teaching endeavor, but we
non-explicit grammar training performed should make sure that our learners can use
as well as the group that had explicit gram- these tools before they have to use them for
mar training, in a post-experiment ques- classroom purposes.Technology can be
tionnaire the students claimed that no used to enhance the teaching and learning
grammar had been learned because no of classical languages, now more than ever.
grammar rules had been explicitly taught With the wide use of Unicode fonts allow-
—i.e., the student assumption was that ing for Greek to be typed and viewed on
language learning implies explicit knowl- the World Wide Web, learners no longer
edge of rules. Knowing that this may be a have to be focused solely on text-based
possibility, it is important for the instruc- materials and written interactions with
tors undertaking this to let the learners peers. Web 2.0 technologies, on the other
know of the learning process in these hand, have moved the Internet from a
courses. broadcast model, a corollary to Lee &
VanPatten’s (2003) “atlas” language
IV. CONCLUSION teacher, to a model that allows of interac-
tion among peers. This facilitates the
communication and the social construction
The current approach to teaching clas-
of knowledge in the language classroom.
sical languages is the Grammar Translation
approach, an approach which is hit-or-miss
because it is not founded on any particular
theoretical underpinnings and it views BIBLIOGRAPHY
language in a technocratic, grammar
centric, approach. Switching to the
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