Abstract
This project aims to fulfill two of the students’ needs in language learning: pronunciation and vocabulary. It will produce 3 interactive micro-modules to strengthen students’ competence in these two areas for the courses New Testament Greek I and II (THEO 3215/5303 and THEO 3216/5304).
The traditional classroom setting can afford only one to two lessons for pronunciation and assumes that students can master the vocabulary by themselves, resulting in lagging behind and frustration of many students and a rather unsatisfactory performance in the rest of the class. This teaching gap is difficult to be filled by normal classroom teaching because learning pronunciation and vocabulary requires a lot of examples for illustration and involves many repetitive practices that, if carried out during class, will make the explanation too clumsy and the teaching progress too slow. Students’ differing progress also makes these learning needs difficult to be fulfilled during one class setting.
The 3 interactive micro-modules will fill this teaching gap. The first module will provide a lot of detailed examples, combining visual (lip movement, progress of syllable) and audio (pronunciation of various speed, voice-over) aids to demonstrate how different vowels, consonants, diphthongs are properly pronounced. The second module will demonstrate different mnemonic tricks in mastering the vocabulary, with the aim of helping students establish their own memory techniques and increase their motivation. The third module will be an integration of the modules one and two and provide a slow reading and explanation of different Greek passages. This project enhances the effectiveness in teaching and learning in the following ways: (1) It reduces the time of repetition in class and increases students’ revision at home. (2) It enhances students’ creative skills in learning vocabulary. (3) The asynchronous nature of the modules will increase the flexibility to fit for students’ different progress. (4) The flipped classroom approach will also increase students’ motivation and facilitates a more interactive classroom. (5) The content and method of the modules will also support students with special education needs in learning language.
Brief write-up
Project objectives
This project targets to help students overcome two specific hurdles in acquiring a foreign, ancient language – pronunciation and vocabulary building, in the context of Ancient (Koine) Greek.
Activities, process and outcomes
In close collaboration with the CUHK Centre for eLearning Innovation and Technology (ELITE), the team conducted extensive planning, research, recording, testing, editing and after-production enhancements of multimedia materials with interactive components. These materials address essential phonological components of Koine Greek, lexical roots and vocabulary acquisition. They also demonstrate grammatical cases, genders and their morphology in carefully designed literal contexts.
Deliverables and evaluation
More than 40 video and audio clips, totaling beyond 250 minutes, are produced, in addition to an array of interactive components. A flipped-classroom strategy has transformed the long-held lecture-and-homework mode.
The materials are designed to suit students with special educational needs (SEN), a focus area in “G2: Adaptive Programme Structure and Pedagogy to Excel in the New Normal” of
CUHK 2025. The materials have also actualized the “Effective use of mixed-mode teaching in programmes and courses”, as the KPI5 under Goal 2 of
CUHK 2025.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
Best practices can be shared with other classes on ancient languages, not least in the Department of Cultural and Religious Students and the Divinity School of Chung Chi College.
Impact on teaching and learning
The new set of multimedia learning materials and the flipped-classroom approach have been enthusiastically received by students of THEO3215/5303 “New Testament Greek I” and THEO3216/5304 “New Testament Greek II”. This is also associated with active student engagement and better grasp of concepts.
