Report of the Task
Force
on the Relationship between Graduate Education and the Undergraduate
Curriculum
Section
3
D. Hooley's
slightly different take on the ideas of
May and
Williams
Too lengthy to reproduce here, Hooley's major points were:
1) Concern for language proficiency
too often recurs to, or
implies, old models of pedagogy that don't work well in a contemporary
setting. We cannot wish back the high old days of solid Latin/Greek
preparation in the schools followed by four years of good undergraduate
training followed by several more in grad school. Current educational
realities are different, and require different kinds of language
training at the college and grad school level. New methods for getting
students up to speed faster need to be explored.
2) Solving the language
acquisition problem
brings us nearer solving the balance problem. We
cannot afford to "put off" the kinds of wider intellectual exposures and
engagement until the later years of grad training as if these things
were somehow ancillary.
3) Students coming late to Latin and Greek
often have an enormous amount, by way of ability and experience, to
offer the the field of Classical Studies; in many ways they may
represent its future. To be able to take advantage of the potential
they represent, we need to seriously explore ways to accelerate and
improve the process of language acquisition at the undergraduate and
early grad levels.