Burying the bad old system, part 3

For the sake of readers who use Microsoft Windows in the USA, I am not putting any marks on the Greek letters in this message.
Revision note, 12/31/2006: I moved the book by Saffire and Freis to list #3.

First, instructors of ancient Greek must be
real teachers of foreign languages
to linguistically adult (post-puberty) students.
Not every good Classics or seminary professor
and not every good graduate student
is a good teacher of foreign languages to adult students.

Second, textbooks must be chosen and assigned
on the basis of their conformity to decades-proven
principles of teaching foreign languages
(especially languages that mark case, number and gender
on every noun and adjective)
to adults,
not merely on how correctly the books show a person
who is already linguistically gifted
how to give the parsing label to any Greek word.

For choosing textbooks, I am developing three lists.
Here they are at their current state of development.

1. βιβλια κοινα
της μεθοδου της κακης τε της παλαιας τε
1. Some typical books
of the bad, old system:
J. G. Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners
C. Pharr and J. Wright, Homeric Greek for Beginners
S. W. Paine, Beginning Greek: A Functional Approach
H. Hansen and G. Quinn, Greek: An Intensive Course
N. C. Croy, A Primer of Biblical Greek

2. τα βιβλια τα αριστα (τοις διδασκαλοις τοις αριστοις)
της μεθοδου της κακης τε της παλαιας τε
2. The best books
(for the best teachers)
of the bad, old system:
R. Schoder, V. Horrigan and L. Edwards, A Reading Course in Homeric Greek
M. Balme and G. Lawall, Athenaze
The Joint Association of Classical Teachers, Reading Greek

3. τα βιβλια τα νικακοτα
την μεθοδον την κακην τε την παλαιαν τε
3. The books that have defeated
the bad, old system!
P. Saffire and C. Freis, Ancient Greek Alive
D. Mastronarde, Introduction to Attic Greek
W. D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek

The books on list #1 need to be re-categorized.
They are excellent intermediate textbooks
or reference guides, but they are torture tools
against true beginners.

Administrators or department heads
who designate a book on list #1 as a primer
are perpetuating the perpetration
of the 24-century-old linguistic hazing system,
teaching new generations of students to hate Greek.

Adminstrators and department heads
who care equally about teaching and scholarship
do not need to be told that enjoyment of the language
is necessary for winsome scholarship
about texts in the language
and for the continuing existence
of the non-specialist audiences
who happily help to keep Classics
and academic religious studies funded.

Nor do real teachers need to be told to remember
the hard work of mastering Greek.

I have read comments on the Internet like,
"Greek is not supposed to be easy,"
from professors who are defending
their continuing perpetration of 24 centuries
of linguistic hazing. A professor who makes such a comment
confirms for me some stereotypes of nasty academic politics.

The message I hear behind, "Greek is not supposed to be easy," is,
"It's more important to weed as many students as possible
out of Classics and seminary programs than it is
to train more generations of good clergy, good secular scholars
and happily interested non-specialist audiences
who might help to keep us specialists employed."

I am not saying that Greek can be made easy;
no foreign language is easy to master
for a beginner who starts after puberty,
and Greek is one of the harder ones
for native speakers of English
both to start into and to master.

I am saying that the pointlessly painful,
24-century-old system now has replacements:
methods of hard but rewarding work.

I am advocating that this replacement be made real
in more public schools, private secular schools,
private religious schools, secular colleges and universities,
religious colleges and universities, seminaries,
and adult education efforts in houses of worship.

If the instructor is an exceptionally good teacher
of foreign languages to adults, it might be possible
for most students in a course using a book from list #1
not to end up hating the language. However, that
would take an exceptional teacher!

The books in list #2 are painless enough
if the instructor is in fact a teacher
of foreign languages to adults.
Under an instructor who is only a scholar
and not a teacher, students would experience
as much pain with the books in list #2
as with the books in list #1,
with the result that a large percentage of them
would still end up hating the language.

The books in list #3 are good enough
that even an instructor who is unproven
or is a scholar of the non-language-teacher type
using one of these as a primer
would not teach students to hate the language.