Curriculum
Our Greek teachers set up their lessons in partnership with the actual schoolteachers. We always make sure we take part in the pedagogical project of the class by discussing with the schoolteacher which themes to choose. The intervention can last all year round at the rate of one hour per week or be done over a more limited period. Certain pre-school classes have a fixed theme for the entire school year, and so we also teach aspects of that theme, even when the theme is that of small birds, in which case we teach Apollo and the crow, Hera and the peacock, Alectryon and the rooster, Daedalus and the partridge, and other stories from Greek myth.
In primary school, depending on the class, the time of year, or the educational project of the class, we can work on constellations, gods, monsters, or a grammatical point. We use all of the educational material that children are used to using, such as their binder, notebook, blackboard, slate, digital board, posters, and books. The pupils find themselves in their accustomed school environment but without any assessment and with plenty of encouragement. In this way, even children with learning difficulties can take part: Greek allows them to write differently, to learn at their own pace, to start a new subject from scratch, and have a sense of achievement. Pupils also discover a new writing system with a different graphic design. Greek writing is not cursive, so it is easy for everyone to reproduce the letters, because children instinctively perceive their pictorial origin. For example, the α represents the head of a bull lying down or a specific fish. There is no spelling trap: you write everything you say! The children have the impression of entering a mysterious universe to which not everyone has the keys. This allows everyone to find themselves on an equal footing and to forget social backgrounds.
Class structure
Our classes are always structured similarly. We always start by telling a story from Greek mythology. In addition to the ‘intellectual’ knowledge provided by myths, mythology itself, like fairy tales, offers children the opportunity to exteriorise their fears. The most gruesome stories make them shudder with delight: killing your father and marrying your mother, gouging out your eyes, sacrificing your daughter, killing your brother's children and feeding them to him. Imagining themselves fighting fictitious monsters is also exhilarating, such as a half man-half bull creature, a snake-haired woman, or a serpent with multiple heads which grow back as soon as they are cut off.
After this introduction, pupils are taught one or more Greek words. Depending on the level, a discussion of the roots of these words will make it possible to enrich their vocabulary, their understanding of etymology, and their French literacy by making progress in orthography.
Thirdly, in our sessions, we always teach children one or more keywords. For example, Massalia, the Greek city, will be linked to the theme of the sea. The key word of that lesson will therefore be θάλασσα [the sea]. Around the keyword, we will group a number of words or expressions. They will be chosen sometimes according to semantics, sometimes according to an orthographic study: for example, explanation of ph (φ), of th (θ), or ch (χ). The children themselves are asked to search for words that are written with a ph, for example, and find: pharmacy, Philippe – which alongside the keyword φαίνειν [to show/appear] will allow us to study: φάρμακον, φιλεῖν, and ἵππος [a potion/drug, to like/love, a horse]. We thus allow ourselves some etymological detours. After learning ἵππος [horse], for instance, children see the connection between hippopotamus and hippodrome. Having learned the word θάλασσα [sea] and noticed that the θ is pronounced as ‘th’, pupils discover the words θέατρον [theatre] and ὁρθός [right/straight], which allows teachers to work on orthography (Figure 1). We enrich pupils' vocabulary in each session: we have a ‘difficult word of the day’, such as thalassocracy (θάλασσα), diaphanous (δια-φαίνειν), anthropophagous (ἄνθρωπος + φαγεῖν) which also allows children to be valued through knowledge: they understand words which are often not known at home and are thus the possessors of marvellous knowledge. We use singing (the children remember the words in this way), theatre (the children make improvisations by replaying a passage), mime (the speaker uses a recurring gesture for the same word), and manual productions (headphones, boat, animals, monsters) in order to support learning.
Figure 1. Page from an 8 year old student's exercise book.
Finally, technological resources allow us to make virtual visits to Greece and introduce archaeological sites. Some class groups were able to put on an end-of-year show on the theme they studied, using the Greek vocabulary they have learned during the sessions.
Didactic method according to level
Of course, the difficulty level is differentiated on the basis of children's age. Let us give some examples of themes based on different age categories.
a. Pre-school (5-year-old children)
One theme proposed by a pre-school schoolteacher was, for example, ‘tales, witches, and giants’. The ancient Greek teacher therefore chose to talk about the monsters of antiquity and in particular Odysseus and the Cyclops. She taught the story so that it can be acted out and staged. Of course, Greek words will be inserted: μέγας [big] and κακός [bad] for the Cyclops; μικρός, καλός, φόβος [small, good, fear] for Odysseus. The story is told by adding these Greek words to the French story: the teacher repeats them and the pupils interpret them. To the sound of μέγας [big], the pupils repeat the word while making big eyes and raising their arms. For μικρός [small], they curl up on their chair, for κακός [bad], they make faces, for φόβος [fear] they shout while hiding their eyes, and so forth. The roles are distributed: the teacher tells the story while the children act it out. With each Greek word, they pronounce it and interpret it as before. The decorations and accessories are made by the children. All of this is part of the end-of-year show.
b. CE2 (8-year-old children)
A course on the theme of Theseus was suggested by the schoolteacher, since previously a work of children's literature on this theme was discussed in class. Using this theme, the ancient Greek teacher illustrates each step in the story of Theseus with works of art that serve as scaffolding for understanding the story. Pupils can then study the artwork with their teacher. The ancient Greek teacher presents the story and introduces pupils to the corresponding vocabulary. For example, to prepare for studying the portrait of Theseus, the teacher projects a photo of a famous sculpture representing Theseus and asks the children to describe the physical and moral characteristics of what for them is a hero. Different adjectives are discussed, such as καλός: beautiful; μέγας: large; ἀνδρεῖος: courageous; σοφός: wise; and δυνατός: powerful. These words will be memorised thanks to mime reused throughout the story. When the ancient Greek teacher pronounces the adjectives, the children have to mime them, and when the teacher mimes them, pupils have to pronounce them in Greek. Pupils will acquire vocabulary by identifying the Greek root of the corresponding French words. For example, for καλός: calligraphy, for μέγας: megalomaniac, for σοφός: philosophy, and so on.
c. CM2 (children aged 10)
The ancient Greek teacher tells the story of Prometheus who will steal fire from the gods. The role of the man is taken on by a pupil who says ‘ἄνθρωπός εἰμι’ [‘I am a man’], so the whole class can answer ‘ἄνθρωπος ἐστι’ [‘He is a man’], or a child can show it by saying ‘ἄνθρωπος εἰ’ [‘You are a man’]. Thus, little by little, the children learn the verb εἰμι [I am] in the present tense.
Then a pupil plays the role of Prometheus and others that of the men. Each of them is presented with an animal that must be terrible and they must take turns in saying: ‘φόβος, fear’. After a while, as there are many ἄνθρωποι [men] who are terrified, Prometheus wants to defend them. He is going to go to the realm of the gods to steal part of the sun, ἥλιος. Children learn this word. Then, the pupil who plays Prometheus says: ‘κλέπτω τò πῦρ, I steal the fire’, pretends to hide the fire in a fennel stem, and says: ‘κρύπτω τò πῦρ, I hide the fire’. Thus, we begin the grammatical learning of the declension, which is not difficult for the moment since these are minimal sentences and a neuter word. For the rest of the session, the teacher works on vocabulary and spelling. For example, she shows pupils that the root of πῦρ [fire] gave us pyrolysis, pyrography and pyrotechnics. But above all it makes pupils discover that the ancient Greek ‘υ’ (i-grecque) in French becomes the i. The playful dimension is important: the teacher shows pupils that the root of κρύπτω [I hide] gives us crypt and cryptogram, and she allows them to have fun building cryptograms. She can also do the same with ἥλιος [sun] which has given us the French heliotrope: one pupil will be the sun [ἥλιος], while the others will represent heliotrope flowers. When the sun moves, the heliotropes follow its movement, shouting: ‘ἥλιος, ἥλιος, ἥλιος!’ [‘The sun, the sun, the sun!’]. The game can be used to memorise vocabulary. It is possible to end the session with a song to the tune of ‘Frère Jacques’:
κλέπτω, κλέπτω
κρύπτω, κρύπτω
φόβος, φόβος, φόβος
In other sessions, the teacher approaches the accusative with slightly more complex sentences. For example, after studying the sentence ὁ θεὀς βλέπει τὁν ἄνθρωπον [The god looks at the man], if we ask the class to say in Greek ‘The man looks at the god’, we will always get the answer: ‘τὁν ἄνθρωπον βλέπει ὁ θεὀς’. Pupils are then told that the meaning has not changed, and the teacher asks them the question: How to do it? Pupils are then invited to analyse the endings of the words and, little by little, learn, without pronouncing the name of the grammatical categories, what is in reality a declension.
Children with learning difficulties
Many failures at school are due to a deep malaise that certain children feel very early on when they are immersed in the school environment, an environment that may appear hostile or too restrictive to them (on account of a bad separation from the family atmosphere, fear of not living up to badly formulated or badly understood expectations). There are many children who are intelligent yet who nevertheless fail in the school environment. These children often have real suffering, and find an escape in isolation or in an assumed role of rebel. It is then a question of showing them that the path to success is open to them. But how to reintegrate them into school? Our experience allows us to affirm that the Greek practised in the ‘Nausicaa’ project is an open door on this path for such children (Figure 2).
Figure 2. 10 young people with learning disabilities in a specialised class at College Sévigné in Marseille do their Greek.
The story of André is the most striking. During a first intervention in a class, the teacher asks a child at random to come forward and say his name. Even before he is able to open his mouth, the replies from his classmates burst forth from all sides: ‘It's the zero!’ and here is our well-characterised child in this role which he apparently accepts well since he advances, a blissful smile on his lips, while waddling. The speaker asks again: ‘What is your name?’. The child changes his attitude, his shoulders drop, he tucks his chin in and whispers in a very small voice: ‘André’. He had moved from the character he was playing that allowed him to exist in the class group to the reality of his identity, that was much less acceptable to him under present conditions. But what a great first name! The teacher then explains to André and his classmates, who gradually stop their sarcasm, the meaning of this first name in Greek: ‘The man, the real one, the male, the hero’. André became interested in Greek and paid attention, which, for him, was a great victory! Over the weeks André traced Greek letters, and over time his ‘Greek notebook’ became cleaner and cleaner. It was another victory. His notebook was kept fairly well. The Greek alphabet was a different life for him, in which he felt valued, where the path to success was possible. French words reinforced by etymology took on meaning. This is how the path to success opened up for André.
We have also intervened in classes (of maximum 10 pupils) which welcome young people with disabilities, in ULIS class (Local Unit for School Inclusion). We applied more or less the same basic methodology, but went much more slowly and always used concrete examples: we recounted the journey of Protis, for example, who founded Marseille, and provided a photocopy of a boat. We had each pupil choose a minor character: they coloured it in, gave it his name, and stuck it on the boat. We then embarked on beautiful adventures by boat. We played with labels with Greek names and their roots on them. What joy, when at the end of the year, while handling her labels, one girl said to the teacher: ‘Basically, you are a mythologist!’ (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Work completed by students with special educational needs at Nasicaa.
Conclusion
The notion of pleasure is, in our experience, essential when teaching ancient Greek at pre-school or primary school level: pleasure that the children show, pleasure to see them impatiently waiting for the Greek course, but also pleasure for us who see them progressing, enriching their lives. That's wonderful. If we had to sum up our action with a slogan, it would be ‘Excellence for all!’ Let's make children long for ancient Greek.
Open access
