Greek, like Russian, Arabic, and many of the Asian languages, can be incredibly intimidating to me because of the alphabet. And, I'm not going to lie, this was a "I really don't know what I'm doing, so let's dive in and try this together" situation. Typically, I can take some sort of authority in what I'm teaching, even if I had to learn or re-learn it myself the night before, but this was really me jumping in and showing Madison that adults are not always the experts, and I would be learning right along with her as a true beginner. When the workbook pages look like this, even my eyes get a little bit wider.
Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek! teaches koiné or "common" Greek. This is not spoken in Greece today, but was the language spoken and written during the time of Christ and used for the New Testament of the Bible. Although I'm definitely a fan of being able to read and understand ancient languages (we've dabbled in Latin for this very reason), I wasn't sure that I wanted this to encompass our language program. Madison's pull to learn languages is to speak, and engage speakers of those languages. Nevertheless, there's obviously value in this, so we dove in.
Level 2, which was the level recommended for a young beginner (and her mom!), introduces the alphabet and in later lessons moves on to simple words. Each lesson has about six pages of workbook pages to complete which can be spread out over the week. Each lesson takes a week to complete and there are thirty lessons in level 2, so theoretically the program would take one academic year, give or take. There are flash cards included in the back of the workbook that are to be used daily to learn the letters and words. The pronunciation CD includes the reader and pronunciations for level one and level two. Each level is built from the previous level.
Looking at the pages, we were intimidated. Hearing and repeating the Greek was ok, but reading and writing, especially the conjugated verbs, was tough. But we persevered.
I did all the writing, as Madison's handwriting is still not 100% clear in her first language. The pronunciation is there, but still, I was exceedingly thankful that our program came with a pronunciation CD. We made great use of that.
Are we ready to commit to an entire school year's worth of curriculum? We're not sure yet. We may go back to a fully aural language curriculum, since Madison is still young, or a language using the alphabet she's familiar with. She enjoyed trying to pronounce the words along with the CD, but she wasn't fully on board with the reading/writing component of the flashcards and workbook. We will probably keep this for a few years and revisit when both girls are older - the great thing is that this program works with multiple ages of beginners.
Others had very interesting experiences with ages and abilities, and I was fascinated to read how every family made this program their own!
