In light of last week’s discussions on twitter and then here, I ended up doing a bunch of reading and reflection about CEFR things…

Not that you have the time, but sitting down and reading some of the extended documentation on CEFR scales is not an unprofitable activity. I think in a lot of discussions we drop CEFR assessments as macro stand-ins for proficiency, without really paying attention to what they are meant to mean. In particular, the CEFR standards also recognise that different skills also have sub-elements. E.g. just in terms of speaking you can rate how a person speaks in terms of fluency : how quickly they speak, how and why they hesitate, how long pauses are, and turn-taking; accuracy : how consistently they use grammar and vocabulary correctly; range : in terms of both breadth of vocabulary, and also breadth of structures they use; phonology. People can be better at some sub-elements, and worse at others. It’s not monolithic. Proficiency is a multi-factor, multi-faceted thing.

Secondly, I was doing some musing on how long it takes to achieve various levels and what is required. I spent a bit of time looking at the cross-language estimated for various European languages, which tend to break them down into “Instructed Hours” and then “Additional Hours”. These estimates tend to come in around 1000 instructed hours to reach C2, and an equivalent number of extra hours.

I broke that down with some examples as:

Option A: 4 years of college, 2 x 12 week semesters, 2.5hrs instruction a day, 4 days a week.

Option B: 5 years of SeumasU, 40 weeks a year, 5 classes every term (e.g. 5 contact hours a week)

Option C: Live-in immersion, if you could take 52 weeks of 5 days a week, 4 hours of class + 4 hours minimum extra study.

I also often refer to an article in the Foreign Language Annals [1] , “Setting Evidence-Based Language Goals”, by Senta Goertler, Angelika Kraemer, and Theresa Schenker, which looked at benchmarking in the college German program at MSU. The research is interesting on a number of levels, but not least that they place some revised benchmarks for levels of college study:

It’s also worth noting, if you don’t know, that there does exist a set of CEFR-aligned tests for Ancient Greek (https://www.languagecert.org/en/language-exams/classical-greek) covering A1, A2, B1, for “Reading and Language Use”. The sample materials are worth looking at. The A1 vocab list is very long in my opinion, full of things that aren’t that common in Ancient Greek teaching materials. It costs money, and it probably needs to be done through online proctoring, which I don’t really believe in.

There are no vocab estimates or lists for CEFR standards, they don’t function like that. There are some estimates out there. I imagine it differs by language. Something on order of 10,000 words for an active C2 vocabulary. That’s quite large by any standard. More like 5000 for C1, which is closer to the active vocabulary of a native speaker without tertiary education. Greek, I think, has a smaller core vocabulary, but a larger peripheral vocabulary. Which is why a mastery of a smaller range of words goes further, but also why you never feel like you know all the words.

All this got me thinking in turn about two things:

1. Could you write Ancient Greek content keyed to CEFR guidelines?

To which the answer is yes. I am doing some experimenting in this area at the moment now, thinking through “okay, a person at A1 is attempting to learn core functional abilities in the language, to cover a certain range of situations and competencies, what is the Ancient Greek needed to do that?”

Don’t expect me to release Ancient Greek for A1 any time soon though…

That said, the amount and volume of material needed to go from A1 to A2, and then A2 to B1, and then B1 to B2, just grows and grows. You need reading material, listening material, watching material, and time spent in live conversation. And more and more of it. A full sequence of material to take you from A1 to C2, we are talking about a minimum of 2000 hrs of content. But really more. So, no, I am not releasing “Seumas’ Course to C2 Mastery in Ancient Greek.”

2. C2 isn’t unrealistic for PhD graduates in classical languages

I mean, plenty of them aren’t C2, but let’s put it like this – if you do a 3-4 year bachelor degree, and then 7 years for a PhD, that’s 10-11 years you’ve put into higher education. Even if you didn’t do Greek (or Latin or whatever) in school (which I didn’t, by the way), you could very reasonably get to B2 at the end of 4 years, which is often considered functional fluency, and then you have 7 years to reach C2, which is entirely achievable. That suggests to me that it is a methods problem, though it’s not only a methods problem. But PhDs in Ancient Greek could be C2 proficient active users of the language, if we designed our education systems to produce them.

[1] Foreign Language Annals, Vol. 49, Iss. 3, pp. 434–454. © 2016 by American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

I realised that not everybody is on twitter (blessed are you), and so here’s a short note that a few months back I started (yet) another blog/substack, in which I write about Christian life, praxis, and do book reviews. If that’s of interest to you, hie ye to jeltzz.substack.com

This weekend, I’ll be hosting an online conference on the online teaching of (classical) languages. If you haven’t heard that by now, apologies for not telling you! I thought I would put up a last call for registrations here. It’s On Saturday 15th October, 3-6pm US Eastern Time (New York). You can find out about our excellent range of speakers here:

I’d be so pleased to have you join us, and if you’d like to register, head along to this page and let us know.

Strange Fruit (original by Abel Meeropol)

(English Below)

καρπὸν τὰ τοῦ νότου ξύλα φέρει ἄτοπον

(ἐπί τε φύλλοις αἷμα, τῇ τε ῥίζῃ αἷμα)

ἀνέμῳ σῶμα αἰωρούμενον μέλαν νότῳ

ἄτοπος τῶν λευκῶν κρεμασθεὶς καρπός 

νόμιον τοῦ ἐσθλοῦ νότου θέαμα

ἐξῳδημένα τε ὄμματα στόμα τε διεστραμμένον

μαγνωλίᾱς εὐωδίᾱ καινή

καιομένης ὀσμὴ σαρκός ἀλέπτη 

καρπὸς τῇδε τοῖς κόραξι δρέπειν

τῷ ὑετῷ συλλέγειν, τῷ ἀνέμῳ ἀνασπᾶν

τῷ ἠελίῳ σήπειν, τῷ ξύλῳ καθιέναι

καρπὸς τῇδε ἄτοπός τε πικρός τε.

Original

Southern trees bear strange fruit,

(Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,)

Black body swinging in the southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

(The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,)

Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh,

(And the sudden smell of burning flesh.)

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

I realise that by now you are mostly used to me starting umpteen projects. Some of those get finished. Some of them are ongoing. And some eventually wither and die due to my lack of impetus. Anyway, none of that deters me, really. I spend my free time working on things that I get passionate about, and if that passion gets sustained to completion, all the better for you and for me.

All of which is to say that I’ve been working away at something else new recently, and I want to share a small glimpse of it. The idea is to produce a Reader’s version of the LXX Psalms, with accompanying devotional commentary and notes. It aims to do three things: (a) combine enough tools and tips in one place for your intermediate and up reader of Greek to read the Psalms with understanding, (b) alongside a framework for understanding the content and theme of each psalm, in a way that makes them more approachable for personal (and corporate) prayer, (c) while giving myself an excuse to diligently read and write about the Psalms in conversation with the great tradition of the church.

Unlike some other things that I’m working away at much more rapidly, I expect this to take a few years to reach completion, and I’m quite okay with that. I’ll post future samples for this to my patreon.

LXX Psalms Dev Reader Sample

So, if you’ve read through parts one, two, three, four, you’ll have gathered that I have a lot of criticism of online theological education as a model. In this post I want to push back against myself, and really suggest that there are two key things that are worth thinking through and applying.

Firstly, I think we do need to circle back to the question of who theological education is for. And in this regards, I think the two different populations : (1) those heading into full-time vocational ministry, and (2) a broader group interested in theological education, set up different demands on theological educators. I would posit that generally speaking, the best approach for group 1 remains full-time residential community living and in-person instruction. I don’t think you can do formation of character and spiritual-formation in particular, very well, except through intentional community life. The shift of that type of education to online is a mistake.

I will add certain provisos. I do think that there’s a strong reverse case to be made, where people either involved in or aiming for vocational ministry in their current contexts should not be pulled out of those contexts. In that case there becomes an even stronger onus on the community, ecclesial or otherwise, to be the locus of spiritual formation. Let’s say, for instance, a ministry candidate from a minoritised ethnic group who is deeply embedded in their local ethnic-ecclesial community, and lives pretty far from seminary. It would be better, I propose, for that person to stay put, and be mentored in their context, and access theological education in terms of knowledge and skills, by distance. Preferably through online delivery + residential intensives. This should then become a kind of dialogic process between student, community, and seminary.

Insofar as online actually makes it possible to serve a broader theological education remit, increasing access to students who could not or would not otherwise take theological education, especially in terms of distance or part-time study, I think that’s a different kettle-of-fish. So, I think seminaries probably ought to make a conscious and clear distinction between “here’s our program for those training for congregational ministry, you come live here for 3-4 years, and you do X”, and “here’s our program for anyone else – you do a diploma/degree structure program, over an extended period of time, but this isn’t an equivalent to the other program”.

That said, my second main point is this: do (online) education better. I realise that in ’20 and ’21 it was a scramble for most professors. Everyone had to move online at a moment’s notice, and those who weren’t used to that found themselves balancing (= crushed) by not only the stress of the pandemic, but also the demands of online teaching. But, recorded lectures, static content, etc., will not do the job. If we want online education to be good, it needs investment. That means (a) that institutions and their teachers invest in making it good, and (b) that institutions spend money to make it good. Teachers can’t make it good if their institutions don’t enable and empower them to. Or, they shouldn’t. I know this won’t dissuade some from doing so anyway, but professors shouldn’t be up to 2am creating amazing online resources and investing untold unpaid hours for an institution that doesn’t value them and invest in them.

In my view, doing it better means we need active investment in (i) delivering quality content, (ii) with an active pedagogy that is prepared to do the hard and difficult work of moving beyond presentational and lecture type models, (iii) does not divorce content production from instructor-interaction, (iv) sustains and practices live synchronous interaction of instructor and students. Let me say it again, if online instruction is primarily content you consume, then how is it truly better than reading some books, listening to a free lecture series, or watching youtube tutorials?

I have yet to see an institution, seminary or secular, truly do online education well. I’ve seen plenty doing their best, but I’m waiting to see someone blow me away with an approach that is thought-through, pedagogically informed, and invested-in by the institution.

My third point is a bonus: neo-liberalism will gut seminaries. The massive on-going shift of neo-liberalism in tertiary education has the effect of turning faculty into employees, divesting the bulk of teaching to casualised adjuncts who are shut out of long-term academic careers because they are disposable waste-products of research programs, and treating the institution as a money-making endeavour in which administrators run the show. This is a mistake on every level, and it is bad for everyone except an elite. It shouldn’t be this way in seminaries, but the more that seminaries adopt college/university models, the more they trend in this direction as well. Seminaries need a renewed vision of what they are (a community of faith-scholars gathered around the common pursuit of knowledge seeking and knowledge sharing), and what they do (practice lives of scholarly virtue and inculcate others into the praxis and dogma of their communities). That ultimately means that faculty are the college, which means investing in long-term tenured faculty, as well as divesting themselves of a business model or a model in which administration is actually in charge.

Okay, I think I’m done. Hope you’ve enjoyed this series. If you ever find a college doing online well, let me know!

This upcoming term (Oct 2022) I’m launching a new class which I’m hoping will become a long running entity. It’s Greek Patristics Readings, and it differs in two important respects from my usual class offerings.

Firstly, unlike the vast majority of my classes, this class isn’t geared towards getting you speaking Greek. Would I love you to speak Ancient Greek? Absolutely. But I also know that’s a big demand, and by running this class more in English, I hope it will open the doors to more students who want to read early Christian theological literature with me.

Secondly, participants in this class will be involved in a project to create Steadman style readers for more patristics texts. If you aren’t familiar, Geoffrey Steadman has done significantly, magnificently valuable work in making Greek and Latin texts available in a format that enables more rapid reading, with vocabulary and commentary on the page with the text. I have previously done a few of these as pdfs, and one small book, but as you can see from the website, I haven’t worked actively on those for quite some time.

Thirdly, as a bonus one might say, I’m running this class at a considerable discount. That’s partly because I will be spending that hour reading patristic Greek whether anybody is in class with me or not, partly because I want to lower the barrier to reading these important texts from early church history as much as I reasonably can. So come along, this coming term we’ll be reading Ignatius of Antioch.

Upcoming classes!

(I stopped doing posts simply about upcoming classes, mostly to reduce clutter, but I realise some people read this blog but do not get updates on my courses via other means. So, I’ll make a habit of doing a regular post before each term, and then deleting it subsequently)

I have a range of classes beginning soon, and I’d love you to come and get a healthy dose of Latin or Ancient Greek with me. Courses on offer include:

Greek

Greek 101 – Intro classes working with Athenaze from chapter 1. Get started speaking from day 1.

Greek 102 (Sun, Thu) – Two continuing cohorts working with Athenaze from ch 7.

Greek 104 – A continuing cohort working with Athenaze from ch 17.

Greek 227: 1 Samuel LXX – in which we read and discuss 1 Samuel in Greek

Greek 273 : Plato III – in which we read Plato’s dialogues. Currently reading Meno

Greek 261 : Coulda Woulda Shoulda – A targeted class where we work on active use of Greek optatives.

Greek 266: Short intro to Conversational Greek – A 5-week only course where we sample strategies and activites for speaking Ancient Greek. Run on UK time.

Greek 292 : Harry Potter in AG – with Isaac : reading and discussing Peter Wilson’s translation in AG.

Greek 293 : Intermediate RPG lite – with Isaac : play a carefully scaffolded RPG-type story-telling game in Ancient Greek.

Latin

Latin 101 – A introductory course to Latin covering LLPSI 1-12 as well as readings from my Cassandra novella.

Latin 121 – For those who have done Familia Romana and are looking to consolidate their Latin. Reading and discussing selections from Gesta Romanorum

Latin 208 : Melanchthon on the Sufferings of Teachers – An intermediate reading and discussion class in Latin

Latin 233 : Proba – An intermediate reading and discussion class in Latin of her Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi.

Other things:

• If you can get a group of at least 2 people, I can put together a custom course to suit your needs.
• I have a number of scholarships available, if finances or other circumstances put these beyond your reach. These are particularly available to students from minoritised backgrounds. Contact me via email (thepatrologist@gmail.com) to apply.
• If you’re unsure of what might be a best fit for you, I’m happy to arrange a chat to discuss your background, needs, and goals in language learning.

1. Content transfer
2. Skill Development
3. Character formation

In this and a series of subsequent posts I’m going to think-out-loud my thoughts on theological colleges, seminaries, and online education. If you’re here usually for mostly classical language pedagogy, feel free to take a short break from reading! But otherwise, we’re going to be thinking about five core questions:

1. What is theological education for?
2. Who is theological education for?
3. What is education?
4. Who are our communities?
5. What happens when we go online?

And in today’s post I’m discussing the first two of these questions: what is TE for, and who is it for?

1. less and less people present as young unmarried persons ready to enter a lifetime of vocational ministry. They are often older, married, with children, and they are less likely to spend a whole ‘career’ in congregational ministry (because our patterns of work, career, vocation, etc., have also changed).
2. who goes to theological college has also changed, as education more broadly has become more accessible, more piecemeal, and more ‘configurable’. Few colleges offer only a single “here’s the 3-year package, sign up and enlist” model. Much more common are multiple degree programs, wide selection of electives, modular, part-time, etc., etc., which increases the diversity of people entering theological college, and hence changes the intended outcome

What’s it like to forget a language? or two? And what does that mean for acquired vs. ‘learned’ language? In this post I reflect upon my experience with two separate languages, and how different forgetting can be.

Learning

(Biblical) Hebrew

I studied Biblical Hebrew in Seminary, for three years way back in 2004-2007. It was all grammar translation (GTM), and I did quite well. I learnt my paradigms, used brute force rote-memorisation to get a lot of vocab in my head, and passed my exams, and took my Old Testament subjects on the Hebrew text rather than English. I didn’t do a fourth year though, and I didn’t really continue on with Hebrew in a significant way. I could use my grammatical knowledge to leverage commentaries, I’d occasionally employ it in sermons, but I didn’t have any ongoing regular use of the language. In 2014 while in Mongolia I ended up teaching a Hebrew exegesis course on Amos, which would not have been my choice! Anyway, I still had enough conceptual knowledge that I could work over a text and parse/analyse to figure out its meaning and how to teach it. This, though, is a long way from an active knowledge, let alone even a passive reading knowledge. These days I recognise that I actually don’t know Hebrew. I’ve begun again with more communicative-based approaches, because I believe only that will stick.

Mongolian

I learnt Mongolian in Mongolia. In 2012 I started, with one-on-one tuition for 4.5 hrs a day, 5x a week. Beyond that we were involved, though not heavily involved, in day to day life with Mongolian speakers, e.g. at our Mongolian church. After the first year I began teaching, while still doing some language specific work, but now I was working/operating in a Mongolian environment. I taught exegesis classes in New Testament, primarily in Mongolian, and then other content-based classes usually with a translator. By our third and final full year in Mongolia, I could happily participate in most conversations, teach in the language, and deliver sermons, but it was still stretching my abilities. Nevertheless, it was an acquired language that I was competently proficient in.

Forgetting

2015 is the last year I spent time in Mongolia. I’ve had a very few occasions to speak it since, but they are uncommon. I made the choice not to spend significant amounts of time maintaining the language, which I could have. That is, I could read/listen/watch and otherwise consume Mongolian content, but I don’t because I’ve chosen to invest my time elsewhere. And yet, the difference in my forgetting of these two languages is marked to me. I literally don’t know any Hebrew, beyond the little I’ve relearned in recent study. I couldn’t produce a paradigm, I read words that are basic and high frequency and don’t recognise them, I can’t get through anything more than a basic sentence. It’s like I never learnt it at all. That’s what it feels like to forget a GTM learned language – you have to start over. Sure, there are bits and pieces of knowledge in my head, which come out and re-activate, but it’s fragmented and it’s not a system. Mongolian is more like… dormant. If I try, I can switch my mind over and formulate complete fluent sentences with good idiomatic, even informal, language. I could probably hold a conversation, but it would be a little slow. I often can’t find a word that I know, but if I then hear it I recognise it with an, “aha, of course”. I’m sure it is becoming more dormant, like a dragon in a long slumber, but I also know that it could be reawakened. Because it’s a complete linguistic system in my mind, and I could functionally operate in Mongolian.

That, for me, is the difference in forgetting a ‘learned’ and an acquired language.

“Nearly all the wisdom which we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern.”

~ Calvin, the Institutes 1.1.1

This may seem an odd place to start a discursive piece reflecting on the place of the classics, but here Calvin divides all knowledge into two parts : the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. Putting aside the question of the knowledge of the rest of creation that is not human, that which is not theology is the humanities. And the humanities are, I would argue, the study of what it is to be human. For those who do not share a belief in God, what else is there to study but what there is to be human? And for those who do, we are inescapably bound by our human condition, whether we reflect upon it or not.

It is because we are interested in the human, that we engage the classics. We read classics because human nature, arguably, does not change. Times and places do, but what is it to be human? We share far more with those of Rome and Greece, than the degree by which we differ from them. We are engaged in a movement from the particular to the common, and back again. So classics is a conversation across centuries. It is a multifaceted conversation. I read Vergil because I am interested in understanding Vergil, and because I am interested in what Vergil says about who we are as humans, yet at the same time I am listening for the differences, the vast gulf of culture and chaos between then and now, between them and me. I am listening for what is the same and what is different, and exploring the spaces in between. At the same time, the very fact that I read Vergil raises other questions – who is not in this conversation? who has been excluded from this conversation? who could I invite to this conversation? and are there times when Vergil should not be invited to the conversation?

We read classics, too, because we are storied creatures. We inhabit narratives. We are the product of time and causality, both real and fictious. Our world, whether we like it or not, is shaped by the histories of antiquity, and we do better to understand this world by understanding the worlds that went before. That, however, is also true of other histories, which also deserve our collective attention. The histories, cultures, and literatures of certain Mediterranean peoples are not intrinsically or inherently more worthy of our attention than others. The history of Europe, its colonialism, imperialism, and thus inordinately large influence on the rest of the world, has been a reason for a historical weight given to its cultures, etc.. That creates almost a paradox. On the one hand, to understand our own world, we are to some degree obliged to engage those histories; on the other, the way those histories are intertwined with the historical injustices that create our present moment, and have silenced other peoples and peoples’, warrants that we turn our attention to minoritised voices.

We also are creatures that tell stories, and the way we tell those stories, what we include and what we exclude, is as important, often more important, than the contents of those stories themselves. That the classics have positioned themselves as the basis of western civilisation is both a given and a contested. Indeed, we ought to wrestle with how and why it is a ‘given’, as well as how it ought to be contested. If we want to understand why the so-called western world has privileged the classics, esp. in a canonical sense, and how this shapes our present, things like contemporary and historical white supremacism, we need to understand how the classics has evolved to situate and tell that story, even at the same time that we can critique that narrative. The stories of European imperialism, colonialism, the emergence of the very concept of Western Civilisation, the construction of whiteness and race, the role of classics as a discipline in evolving an idea of classics that grafts the present onto the past as a legitimising tool of power and oppression – all these are stories that require our critical engagement and analysis, at the same time that we critically read the stories that are their content, and the stories currently being told about them. Stories shape who we are, but they can be reshaped. 

We read classics because we are humans are interpreters. We talk, and the only way forward is to talk more. In this sense all discourse is recourse, it builds and responds to what has been said before. Reading outside the canonical construct of the ‘canon’ does not necessarily mean rejecting the canon, but it can mean and should mean de-canonising the canon. Is Homer worth reading? Yes, but perhaps not for the reasons Homer was read before. And not because other things aren’t worth reading. By choosing to read other things, and not choosing to make it compulsory to read Homer, or assuming that everyone has or does, we broaden our conversation. That conversation goes on, because we are talking creatures, and the only alternative is silence. We engage in a conversation that involves the living and the dead, to understand ourselves and each other, and the more parties we bring to that conversation, the greater our learning.

We read classics because in studying the past, we retell the past, and in telling the past, we speak the now and shape the future. How we tell the past reveals who we think we are, and what we think we’ll do. 

To return to the start – I think we do humanities precisely because we are human and so we are subject to certain conditions – the finitude of our human existence, the longings of the heart, the capacities of our flesh, the finite certitude of death. And within those bounds we long to understand ourselves and each other, and the primary means of doing so is speech. We learn languages to communicate. Latin, and Greek, due to certain social and historical factors, their intertwined histories as languages of empire not least, open a door to millenia of texts across six continents, from a vast number of speakers. That is a particular reason to learn them and put them to use, but it is not an exclusive one. I do not think Latin or Greek is privileged in that sense, indeed I think there is incredible value in learning other languages and engaging other histories, cultures, literatures, and oral traditions, because we are the poorer when we don’t engage those voices.

At the same time, the very finitude of human existence means we, as individuals shall never learn all languages, engage all cultures, hear all voices, or read all texts. The choice of a particular individual to read particular texts is grounded in finitude. Which means that part of the value of humanities is not the objects, but the nature, of the study itself. Not in the trite and utilitarian sense of “develops cognitive skills, builds close analysis, logic” etc trotted out to convince students of the neo-liberalist pay-off of being better cogs in a capitalism machine. Rather, sustained, critical communication, whether interpretation or expression, makes us better dialogue partners, and thinkers, if the content of our communication drives us back to the central questions of what it means to be human. 

Classics as a discipline was born from an inherently privileged context: the notion of the liberal arts, the cultivation of humanitas as what pertains to noble, landed, freeborn, Roman male enslavers. We are not them, nor should we idealise them. And yet, the discipline itself taught us the tools of its own destruction – to closely read texts and ask questions, disturbing and critical questions. It is that questioning that leads us into new spaces, new ways of approaching texts, so that the texts of the past may be asked new questions, even as we ask age-old questions by listening to, and at times privileging, new voices, or neglected and marginalised old ones.

This is why I read classics.

I know, I am notorious for starting new projects, and not necessarily finishing them. Anyway, that’s a personal flaw I’m working on. In this post I’m going to talk about two newish projects I’m working on and a bit about how I’m tackling them.

Both of them are “Readers”, i.e. graded reading texts designed for introductory and intermediate students. In each case I’m specifically keying them to an existing resource, the Greek one μὲν to Athenaze, the Latin one δὲ to LLPSI.

Why key to an existing resource?

Simply, I teach with both these texts, and I quite like them, and don’t think I could currently improve on them (well, LGPSI is a different story, and I am still working on that). I don’t want to replace either of them, but I do want to create new resources that would work alongside those, and expand students’ options and reading material.

What are these readers?

The Greek one is designed to create a narrative that piggy-backs of Athenaze but moves the reader into the world, and the language, of the New Testament. It solves a problem that I have, which is that I prefer to teach NT and Koine students from Athenaze, but if you only read Athenaze you end up with a very atticising Greek, and you don’t have quite the exposure to New Testament vocabulary and idiom that I’d like. A supplementary reader can: (a) broader a students’ reading, (b) build of their Athenaze knowledge, (c) prepare and engage them for NT specific vocabulary, syntax, and content.

I’m calling it Γαλιλίᾱθεν for the moment.

The LLPSI one is designed to mirror and match LLPSI: Familia Romana. FR does an amazing job, despite its flaws, and I have no need nor desire to really replace it. But we could always do with “more reading”. Which, also, the Latin novella industry is doing a nice job of filling. But I want to tell new stories, and I want to tell non-ancient and non-Roman ones. That’s why this book is set in a dystopian cyberpunk future of 2122, with a female protagonist, and no Romans in sight. It exists in a shared universe with my (temporarily halted but not exactly dead) Elena story.

Processes

Given that I’m not terribly far along in either of these, this is what my process looks like: for each chapter/section, I look up what new vocabulary and “up to this point” vocabulary the touchstone text has used. I also look over the grammar covered. In the early chapters, some of the content is very similar, simply because the working material is limited. I also look at the length of each sections. For the Latin project, I do a word count on LLPSI and on Colloquia Personarum, and aim to be slightly longer than the CP reading. For Γαλιλίᾱθεν I aim to be around the same length, erring on the shorter side (the Italian edition readings are very long compared to the English edition ones). I try to introduce minimal new grammar, if possible; for vocabulary, my aims are divergent. In Γαλιλίᾱθεν  I’m consciously trying to substitute more common Koine words for Attic equivalents, as well as introduce some NT specific vocabulary. For the Latin, I’m trying to gently expand a reader’s vocabulary, to the point where I can tell a full-fledged story in the later half of the book.

Timeline and Release

The good news is that, at least for the present, I have some decent work processes in place that are keeping these (and other projects, including LGPSI!) moving forward at a reasonable pace. I plan to release some sections free to all. Others to my patreon, to moderately reward those backing me there, and once it’s done we’ll see about some kind of publishing. I would very much like to keep up a solid pace of a chapter a week, but that’s probably a little too ambitious.

The best way to learn Ancient Greek is with a live teacher, in person, with lots of contact time, speaking, talking, reading, writing. That’s not possible for everyone, and I don’t have a position that lets me teach like that anyway. It’s why SeumasU exists – to provide a way for people throughout the globe to learn Latin or Ancient Greek online, with live interaction, and to read a variety of texts that rarely get touched in traditional institutions. And if my courses don’t suit, I will happily point you to several other excellent online instructors in Latin and Greek.

And yet there are some people for whom live classes aren’t possible or viable. That’s one reason why I have been developing for quite some time now a stand-alone video course that takes you through Athenaze, with all the instruction you could expect from a teacher or professor. No, it doesn’t replicate live conversational classes. It does do everything else though.

The first part of this course is now complete. That is, all the core content is there and ready for someone to use and guide their own way through Athenaze, while still tackling it as a ‘live’ language. I’m now working to complete the core content for the second part, as well as create a considerable amount of bonus content for part one.

What’s in Part 1?

Part 1 of this course covers Athenaze chapters 1-8. After introductory material on the alphabet and orthography, we move into the main content.

Each module consists of 4 sets of videos.

Vocabulary Pre-Teaching: Introduces some of the key vocabulary for the chapter, with pictures, example sentences, links to English and Latin words. It’s a pre-step to get you ready for reading.

Text and Explanation: For each of the readings in Athenaze, I provide a teaching video where I guide you through the passage, giving English-language explanations of new elements as well as interesting features.

Greek Questions: For each reading I provide a subsequent video that demonstrates and exemplifies Greek questions and answers about the passage, section by section.

Grammar: The grammar videos cover, but do not replicate, the material in the textbook. Instead, you get my own take on the grammatical topics for each chapter, going above and beyond standard introductory explanations, and drawing upon contemporary approaches to Greek linguistics.

Bonus Videos: As the course expands, I’m adding bonus videos that dive into additional readings, as well as cover Greek grammar in Greek.

If you’re looking for an asynchronous online video course to guide you in your ancient Greek learning, this is it.

Ancient Greek 101

I know that everyone is always excited to hear about LGPSI and what’s happening or not happening. I’m pleased to report that some things are happening. I try not to ever make promises about LGPSI progress, because I never want to disappoint you with expectations unfulfilled.

Firstly, I’m doing some revision work on the early chapters, primarily to put them into a more Ørbergised format, with margin notes, and with some ‘placeholder’ illustrations. These are generally stock images I’ve pulled to stick into the margins to give an idea of where I think illustrations should go. Chapters in this format are slowly being released to my handful of loyal patreon supporters.

Secondly, I’m doing some similar editing, marginalia, and proof-reading of chapters from about 10 onwards. Due to adjustments in chapter contents and storyline, some of the chapter-alignments are now out of date as well. As the text of these gets done, I’ll stick them into the repository, and I’ll release the draft Ørberg versions on patreon.

Thirdly, I’ve been running an “LGPSI+” class for several terms now, and we passed the previous point of written material some time ago (It was chapter 19). I have draft notes for new chapters from 17 up until 25, but they need to be written out from the draft material collaborated on in our classes and turned into full chapters. This is the third type of ‘work’ I’m doing. Those chapters will also see a text release on the repository and webpage, and a marginalia/image draft on patreon.

FAQ: When can you expect what? When it’s ready.