By Eugenia Manolidou
In recent years, young people have grown increasingly distant from classical studies. In my view, this tells us far more about the way Ancient Greek and Latin are taught than about any lack of curiosity among younger generations. The renewed attention surrounding the Odyssey has shown how powerfully people still respond to the archetypal figures, stories and questions of the classical world, and how strongly they wish to reconnect with them.
For many students, however, access to that world is obstructed by the enormous difficulty of learning ancient languages almost exclusively through grammar, syntax and translation. The grammar-first model, when used as the principal gateway to Ancient Greek and Latin, has failed. It introduces the language as a system before pupils have had the opportunity to hear it, experience it and understand how its words create meaning.
If we want young people to return to the Classics, we must reconsider the way these languages are taught. Children should encounter Ancient Greek and Latin through speech, meaning, image, movement and action, as any other language, allowing grammatical knowledge to develop alongside genuine comprehension. Such an approach can help them appreciate the language as a precious cultural inheritance and, in Greece, make fuller use of the unique access offered by Modern Greek.
This call for renewal has a history of at least two centuries and belongs to a long Greek and European pedagogical tradition. Among the earliest scholars who sought to give Ancient Greek a place in the spoken life of the classroom were Dimitrios Darvaris and Neophytos Doukas. John Stuart Blackie and W. H. D. Rouse later pursued the same aim from different starting points.
A Tradition More Than Two Centuries Old
In 1798, Dimitrios Nikolaou Darvaris published in Vienna his Εισαγωγή εις την Ελληνικήν γλώσσαν (Introduction to the Greek Language), a manual containing three hundred Greek dialogues. In the wording of its title, it was addressed «τοῖς τῆς Ἑλλάδος φωνῆς πρωτοπείροις», “to beginners in the Greek tongue.” Its pedagogical significance lies above all in the choice of dialogue as a teaching instrument. The language was organised into short exchanges and became an exercise in use, extending the student’s experience beyond rules and paradigms.
A few years later, Neophytos Doukas, one of the most important figures of the Modern Greek Enlightenment, connected teaching even more explicitly with oral use. In his treatise Περὶ τῆς λαλουμένης γλώσσης (On the Spoken Language), included in his 1814 edition of the dialogues of Aeschines Socraticus, he recalled telling his teacher, Lambros Photiadis, that Ancient Greek could never be spoken again. Photiadis replied that a language which had been created, developed and brought to maturity could, through careful effort, recover powers that had grown dormant. Doukas ended the account with three words: «Ταῦτα ἀκούσας, ἐπείσθην» (“Having heard this, I was persuaded”).
Doukas’s position formed part of his broader archaizing vision. He wanted the modern literary language to move gradually towards its ancient form, an ambition that differs substantially from contemporary active pedagogy. The educational importance of his intervention lies in his conviction that Ancient Greek could be used both orally and in writing at school. In his 1815 Φοίνιξ (Phoenix), he composed dialogues and letters specifically «εἰς χρῆσιν τῶν νέων ἐν τοῖς Γυμνασίοις» (“for the use of young people in the Gymnasia”).
A few decades later, in Scotland in 1853, John Stuart Blackie, Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh, approached the question from a different direction. In the opening lecture of the 1853-54 academic session, entitled On the Living Language of the Greeks, and Its Utility to the Classical Scholar, he criticised the distance that Western philological tradition had created between Ancient and Modern Greek. Having just returned from his first journey to Greece, where he had studied the language in its own setting, he argued that teaching should address the ear, “the natural avenue of sound,” alongside the eye and the understanding. He also believed that knowledge of Modern Greek could give the classical scholar a more immediate relationship with the language’s historical continuity.
Roughly half a century later, at the beginning of the twentieth century, W. H. D. Rouse moved from theory to systematic practice. A classical scholar, headmaster of the Perse School in Cambridge and one of the founding editors of the Loeb Classical Library, Rouse taught Greek and Latin through the Direct Method. He connected words directly with objects, actions and meanings, while reducing reliance on translation. His pupils listened, answered questions, described pictures, followed instructions, retold stories and used the language before formulating grammatical rules. Grammar and accuracy retained their full importance in his method. Grammatical and syntactical analysis followed the pupils’ first encounter with the language, allowing them to understand the rules more deeply.
What This Can Look Like in Today’s Classroom
These ideas can enter today’s classroom gradually and in partnership with translation, grammar and syntax. A teacher can begin with only a few minutes of active language use, guided by a clear aim and material suited to the pupils’ age and level.
The lesson might open with simple, repeated instructions: «ἄνοιξον τὸ βιβλίον» (“open the book”), «δεῖξον τὴν εἰκόνα» (“point to the picture”), «ἄκουσον» (“listen”), «ἀνάγνωθι» (“read”), «γράψον» (“write”). The word is immediately connected with an action. The teacher can then present an image and ask brief questions: «τίς ἐστιν;» (“who is it?”), «ποῦ ἐστιν;» (“where is he or she?”), «τί ποιεῖ;» (“what is he or she doing?”). At first, pupils can point, choose, repeat or answer with a single word, until comprehension gradually leads to the production of speech.
A Homeric episode lends itself particularly well to this approach. Before the grammatical and syntactical analysis of a passage from the Cyclops episode, the teacher might show an image and say: «ὁ Ὀδυσσεὺς ἐν τῷ σπηλαίῳ ἐστίν» (“Odysseus is in the cave”). The teacher can then ask: «ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ Ὀδυσσεύς;» (“where is Odysseus?”), «τί ποιεῖ ὁ Κύκλωψ;» (“what is the Cyclops doing?”). Pupils can arrange images in the correct sequence, reconstruct the story through key words, perform two or three short lines and dramatise a brief dialogue. When they return to the original text to identify the verb, the case or the syntactical structure, the form already belongs to a person, an action and a meaning.
The Special Advantage of Modern Greek
In Greece, we have an additional advantage: Modern Greek. Connecting Ancient Greek words such as «ναῦς» (“ship”) with «ναυτικός» (“sailor” or “naval”) and «ναυπηγείο» (“shipyard”), «ἅλς» (“salt” or “sea”) with «άλας» (“salt”) and «ύφαλος» (“reef”), or «χείρ» (“hand”) with «εργόχειρο» (“handicraft”) and «εγχείρηση» (“operation” or “surgery”) helps a child trace the language’s development and build vocabulary, while recognising the differences between its historical forms. Linguistic continuity thus becomes a concrete experience. The child recognises relationships, follows changes and understands that each historical form of Greek retains its own characteristics.
At “Elliniki Agogi”, we have used these practices for many years through storytelling, images, song, role play and theatre. This work has been presented in two articles in the Journal of Classics Teaching, published by Cambridge University Press. Our experience shows that even young children can approach Ancient Greek in an intelligible and creative way, provided that the material is carefully graded and the teacher knows precisely which linguistic feature each activity is designed to cultivate.
A Disciplined and Complementary Practice
The effective use of active pedagogy requires suitable texts, teacher training, a clear learning progression and continuous checks on comprehension. Used alongside philological analysis, it can bring participation, rhythm, auditory memory and the sense that the words of the text speak and signify.
Blackie ended his lecture by inviting his colleagues to test his proposal in practice and by invoking the apostolic phrase: «πάντα δὲ δοκιμάζετε, τὸ καλὸν κατέχετε» (“test all things and hold fast to what is good”). Perhaps this remains the most measured response to any pedagogical proposal: study it, try it in the classroom, evaluate the results and retain whatever genuinely helps pupils understand and appreciate the Greek language as it deserves.