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    Thesis Defense Presentation

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    Peter Sipes
    These are the slides I used for my thesis defense about Ancient Greek Textbooks. Really, it's nothing near what's in the thesis, but it will give you a strong idea.

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    Thesis Defense Presentation

    Uploaded by

    Peter Sipes
    425 views30 pages
    These are the slides I used for my thesis defense about Ancient Greek Textbooks. Really, it's nothing near what's in the thesis, but it will give you a strong idea.

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    These are the slides I used for my thesis defense about Ancient Greek Textbooks. Really, it's nothing near what's in the thesis, but it will give you a strong idea.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    425 views30 pages

    Thesis Defense Presentation

    Uploaded by

    Peter Sipes
    These are the slides I used for my thesis defense about Ancient Greek Textbooks. Really, it's nothing near what's in the thesis, but it will give you a strong idea.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    At a glance
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    The text discusses the characteristics of Ancient Greek as a language and compares different textbooks used to teach Ancient Greek in terms of their vocabulary lists, presentation of culture, and rates of vocabulary learning.

    Ancient Greek is described as not being genetically close to English or Latin, but having much contact with Latin. It is also described as being polycentric with different dialects.

    Textbooks are discussed as presenting the L2 language and its culture while also having authority and conveying ideology through choices of content and presentation. They can emphasize or leave out certain aspects of the target culture.

    A Discourse Analysis

    of Three Ancient
    Greek Textbooks
    Peter Sipes
    Thesis Defense presentation
    26 March 2015

    Ancient Greek, the language


    Not genetically close
    to English
    Not genetically close
    to Latin, though there
    was much contact
    Chart hides ancient
    polycentrism
    Graphic from Chang et al. (2015)

    Ancient Greek, the language


    Polycentric for sure
    Epic (not shown)
    Attic (pink)
    Ionian (purple)
    Doric (tan)
    Aeolic (yellow)
    Koine (not
    shown)

    What is a language textbook?


    Things you already
    know
    Presents L2
    Presents L2s
    culture
    Image source: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/19/travel/la-trgab-20101219

    What is a language textbook?


    Things you dont
    already know
    Authority
    Position
    Ideology
    both L2 culture
    how L2 is presented
    Image source: https://www.etsy.com/listing/124241608/ theenchiridion-medium-adventure-time?ref=shop_home_active_16

    Positioning & Authority


    Textbooks can be understood
    as the legitimate version of a
    societys sound knowledge
    the knowledge that every pupil
    has a primary responsibility to
    master (Dendrinos, 1992).

    There can be interactive positioning in which what one


    person says positions another... However it would be a
    mistake to assume that positioning is necessarily
    intentional. (Davies and Harr, 1990)

    Second-language textbooks
    carry authority by virtue of
    having content that is related
    to other social institutions
    outside the school or the
    classroom (Dendrinos, 1992).

    A pitfall for EFL textbooks


    EFL books in Great Britain overrepresent the white middle-class
    population with their concerns about
    holidays and leisure time, home
    decoration and dining out, their
    preoccupation with success,
    achievement and material wealth.
    (Dendrinos, 1992: 153)

    Image from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article2795822/vintage-british-seaside-posters-sell-auction-new-york.html

    Because actually
    Absent, or nearly absent
    are the great variety of
    minorities, people of
    African, Indian,
    Pakistanese [sic] descent
    who make up a
    considerable part of the
    population; and the
    problems of the illiterate
    masses are rarely or
    never mentioned.
    Image from: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/opinion/newsrooms must-reflect-modern-britain/5078753.article

    (Dendrinos, 1992: 153)

    Does this apply for AG textbooks?

    Image from: http://www.brynmawr.edu/classics/images/pitsapanels.jpg

    presentation of literary register


    spoken register not really
    preserved
    centered on Attica and Athens
    Athens didnt dominate
    Greek world of antiquity the
    way it does today
    literature written by the educated
    and urban elite
    in a rural and uneducated
    society

    Classical Humanism
    Curriculum is content-driven.
    [It is] characterized by the desire to
    promote broad intellectual capacities,
    such as memorization and the ability
    to analyze, classify, and reconstruct
    elements of knowledge.

    Raphael, School of Athens from https://en.wikipedia.org/


    wiki/The_School_of_Athens#/media/File:Sanzio_01.jpg

    Knowledge is considered to be a set


    of truths which should be revealed by
    the authority (teacher or textbook)
    and mastered by the pupil
    (Dendrinos, 1992: 104-105).

    Methods within Classical Humanism


    Grammar-Translation

    Cognitive

    traditional method
    language as an autonomous
    meaning system (Dend., 1992: 106)
    3 steps to learning
    teach grammar point
    ????
    know the language

    reaction to Behaviorist
    philosophies of SLA and in C.
    H. according to Dendrinos
    specific goal of language
    teaching is the development
    of linguistic competence
    (Dendrindos, 1992: 107)

    The study itself


    The books

    What they have in common


    Athenian dialect
    heavy use of
    narrative in
    instruction
    ummm.

    Image source: Shakko/Wikipedia

    Ancient Greek Alive


    Starts with spoken language
    Moves to non-Greek stories
    Animals and Nasruddin stories
    compares to Aesop

    Vocabulary in lists
    Only in review chapters
    shortest vocab list of books in study

    Cultural essays
    Grammar-Translation despite
    amount of narrative (sc.
    Translationese)

    JACT: Reading Greek


    Narrative is a greatest hits of Greece
    s ancient literature
    Vocabulary list is long enough to
    reach 80% coverage
    in lists that accompany readings

    Very little cultural exposition in


    English
    could be used in class with GrammarTranslation or Cognitive approach

    Athenaze
    Narrative follows a family
    somewhat tied to the Peloponnesian
    War
    shows domestic life

    Cultural essay with chapter


    tied to narrative in some way

    vocab list short


    but there are two books

    Cognitive instructional approach

    Lexis
    A potentially endless, though surmountable
    task
    ~65 lemmas cover 50% of Ancient Greek text
    ~1,100 lemmas cover 80% of text (Major, 2008)
    ~4,000 can pass as fluent (Milton & Alexiou, 2009)

    Can stand in for syntax and morphology


    this study ignores those aspects of language
    research has found lexical knowledge correlates with
    reading ability (Schmitt, 2010: 4)

    Lexis and Zipf curves

    Blue line necessarily


    reaches 100%
    Red line shows long-tail
    effect
    Frequency isnt
    important
    Shape is
    Not continuous
    (despite appearances)

    Whats hiding in the tail


    is why vocabulary
    acquisition is so tricky

    Zipf curve early in book


    See the lump near
    the left end of the
    curve? What is
    that doing there?

    Zipf curve in the middle of the book

    Zipf curve at the end of the book


    Though things
    do get weird.
    Why?
    Different
    dialect or

    Zipf curve at the end of the book


    a too short
    passage.

    Lexis and coverage


    Platos Republic, book 1
    Coverage % Tokens

    Lemmas Note

    50%

    4,637

    53

    80%

    7,419

    304

    95%

    8,810

    972

    Still not as long as Majors 80% list

    98%

    9,088

    1,276

    Heres where you can start guessing meanings from context

    100%

    9,274

    1,753

    Shorter than Majors short list of 65

    Data from Steadman (2012) and Perseus (2014)

    How do they stack up with lexis?

    Textbook

    Majors 50% coverage

    Total Vocabulary

    JACT

    61 (63 in glossary)

    1,318

    Ancient Greek Alive

    61

    682

    Athenaze

    59

    603

    Rate of lexis learning: JACT

    Rate of lexis learning: AGA

    Rate of lexis learning: Athenaze

    Culture
    accessible for modern
    languages
    not as accessible for
    classical languages

    Upper image: Steve Swayne


    Lower image: Flickr user Agnee

    Culture in narrative
    Women & Slaves
    both had limited roles in literary sources
    textbooks uneven in presentation
    JACT nearly zero slaves, women presented
    better
    Athenaze domestic story, presents both more
    fully
    Ancient Greek Alive no Greek culture in the

    Culture beyond narrative


    many cultural topics presented in essays
    outside of the Ancient Greek narrative
    textbooks again uneven in presentation
    JACT virtually zero non-narrative cultural
    presentation
    Athenaze essays tied to narrative themes
    Ancient Greek Alive essays only, with some
    striking choices about topic

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