Oral Greek - Level C

Oral Greek - Level C
Oral Greek - Level C

The program “Oral Greek from A to C through B” attempts to enhance the Speaking skills in learners of Greek as a Second /Foreign Language that have achieved one of the three learning stages, A (Basic User), B (Independent User), C (Proficient User) according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEF, 2001).

The module Oral Greek C aims to help advanced speakers of Greek achieve a more native-like performance in all kinds of contexts and different occasions of oral interaction.  A second aim is to raise their awareness about language, its structures, its lexical networks, about options and preferences, things we say, things we avoid and things we simply imply. 

Role-plays and tasks included in Oral Greek C are provocative and more demanding; monologues and presentations get closer to academic style and can meet professional demands. What’s new, however, is the less formal dialogs, where learners will come across everyday language not so frequently found in textbooks and materials designed for the advanced level, since oral Greek is not only found in academic contexts but in everyday situations that involve informal language, elliptical speech, as well as proverbs and idiomatic expressions, all of which often make input incomprehensible, even for the advanced speakers.

Learners will come across discussions about contracts for houses or jobs; they will report news and events of interest to friends, colleagues and radio programs; they discuss everyday routines and present ideas that can make them more interesting and less stressful; they will make proposals to the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks; they will also learn words and phrases that express anxiety, anger, fear, concern or sorrow in casual and formal speech – and all the above in various topics such as family, environment, media, health and nutrition, technology and employment.   

Advanced learners will receive practice that helps them follow longer conversations on well-know as well as unfamiliar topics, negotiate meaning, exchange information, express feelings, arrive at general and specific conclusions, support their arguments convincingly. Grammatical information includes not only formal structures and forms but also ‘modern talk’ like slang, nouveau expressions and intonation patterns that differentiate meaning. Paraphrasing, metaphoric language and stylistic features of speakers’ preferences are more fine-tuned. Learners build their understanding of oral Greek communication by exploring communicative conventions and ‘unspoken rules’ of spoken language. Ultimately, they will become equal interlocutors with native speakers, in terms of language performance and communicative competence.

Oral Greek C is the challenge learners want to take: the challenge of native-likeness!

Iakovou Maria
Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics
Start Date Start Date: May 27th 2024
Duration Duration: 12 weeks
Programme leads to Course Certificate
Educational SupportEducation type: Personal educational support
Price Total cost: 450 €
Pay as you go
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It is important to stress that this online program cannot replace the lessons of Greek in a classroom environment, which the learner has undoubtedly attended at some point in his learning path before being involved in this type of online education. The program refers exclusively to Comprehension and Production Skills during oral communication, since all teaching units lead the learner, as noted, to understand and produce more efficient Greek spoken language in various contexts according to his language level. In this sense, the "Oral Greek from A to C through B" is addressed to:

• Learners of Greek as a Second or Foreign Language who attend language courses in parallel or preceding the time of enrollment in the program and based on the ranking test or on their personal preference choose one of the three-course cycles
• Expatriates who at some point have attended a Greek language school, have been taught Greek in a classroom environment and are keen to improve their skill of producing written speech.

The module Oral Greek C aims to help advanced speakers of Greek achieve a more native-like performance in all kinds of contexts and different occasions of oral interaction.  

Learners build their understanding of oral Greek communication by exploring communicative conventions and ‘unspoken rules’ of spoken language. Ultimately, they will become equal interlocutors with native speakers, in terms of language performance and communicative competence.

Each teaching unit consists of three parts:

•  In the first part, the learner has the possibility to work on the language tools at the time most convenient to him (for the duration of a week). These are presented either in the form of instructions/theory through authentic texts appropriately modified depending on the level of general knowledge of the language, or lexical items lists. In any case, all the necessary components of each unit are given in the form of necessary steps/actions directly accessible from the beginning. Then, the learner has the possibility to review the information and study them through guided exercises, which are in the form of list matching, multiple-choice (pick one) or right-wrong (boolean). For these exercises the program provides to the learner direct assessment and the opportunity to refer to the first part of the theory whenever he feels there are gaps in the initial contact with it.

• In the second part, the learner is asked, in a time predetermined by the program, to perform a writing task which is the final product of each module. In fact, the learner practices the material of the first part in order to complete the task of the second part. Hence, the 12 teaching units of each level end in 12 written productions (11 productions based on subjects + 1 written output as a final evaluation of the entire program of each level).

• In the third part, the learner receives personalized feedback on his own linguistic output. The feedback includes error annotation, metalinguistic explanation for each error type and the error free text.

The structure of the material entails two things:

1.    The learner may not proceed with the second part of the task, if he has not previously followed the instructions and have not been familiar with the material that is presented in the first part. Each task targets the comprehension of the language tools preceding.
2.    The learner cannot stay in the first part of the linguistic input, and not perform the task provided in the second part. This way he "breaks" the chain of consecutive language productions and participation in the program is insufficient. 

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The content of teaching units is summarized in the following table:

  • Lexical items lists (for each thematic unit at each language level)
  • 3 live streaming sessions, with the ability to interact with a designated tutor
  • Language instructions/theory (grammatical rules, conventional speech acts, text types conventions, text organizational structures) enriched with pictures, figures, tables and links
  • Appropriately modified texts according to the language levels
  • In-context presentation and analysis of linguistic items
  • Examples of usage
  • Modeling exercises
  • Additional bibliography and selected webography
  • Additional files (Pdf, Power Point)
  • Self-evaluation exercises
  • Final production task
  • Personalized feedback

The main focus and innovation of the whole program lies in the second and third parts of each module. There the learner receives personalized feedback for his own language output and enhances his/her productive skills in speaking according to his/her own capacity. 

This way, participation in the program allows for a targeted inspection of each learner’s oral production and “pushes” the learner to test and verify his knowledge to the fullest extent possible. In fact, this is the only way to "force" learners to activate part of the knowledge to which they have already been exposed by pushing them to produce their own language material. In this way, learners’ output is converted into a new learners’ auto-input on which the necessary corrective feedback will be given.

This role is undertaken by the program support team "Oral Greek from A to C through B" by commenting, analyzing and interpreting the language production of each learner separately and thus creating a new personalized input that results from the needs, the level and ability of the learner him/herself.

The prerequisites for participation in the program on the learner’s part are:

- Internet access

- Basic computer knowledge

- Certificate of attendance in Greek language courses (if applicable) (eg. in case of attending Greek language courses at the University/school or institute/language school in another country or in Greece).

The prerequisites for participation in the program on the learner’s part are:

- Internet access

- Basic computer knowledge

- Certificate of attendance in Greek language courses (if applicable) (eg. in case of attending Greek language courses at the University/school or institute/language school in another country or in Greece).

 

 

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