When she taught small children to swim, New Testament Professor Audrey West invented creative techniques like "chicken swim" and "monster swim"--visual images that would inspire her young charges to lift their elbows, roll their shoulders, and make giant, powerful motions. Teaching meant breaking each stroke into its smaller components: breathing, moving the head, moving the arms, moving arms and head together . . . and kicking while continuing to do all the upper-body movements in synch. Learning took time. Students had to keep practicing. And all that came after they had gotten over their fear of the water.

In teaching the first two quarters of introductory Greek, West draws upon her years as a competitive swimmer, coach, and instructor to encourage her students as they enter the waters of a new alphabet and foreign thought-world. She also vividly remembers her own first few weeks of seminary at Yale Divinity School, where she had originally enrolled in pursuit of ordained ministry. Although she had been the director of a national agency for seven years and director of youth ministry in a congregation, West was "terrified." As an undergraduate pre-med biology major she had successfully conducted research projects but rarely had to pull together ideas in a formal paper, let alone throw around terms like "hermeneutics" or "exegesis." Just being at seminary meant learning a new vocabulary. After an initial crisis in confidence, however, she did well, and came to love her newly acquired language of theology.

"When I began seminary, graduate school in New Testament wasn't even on the radar screen. It appeared there as a result of joy in my Biblical classes. I had wonderful teachers who loved Scripture and loved the church, and cared about what it means to live in the world that is made for us by the Scriptures. I wanted to do nothing more than to live thoroughly in that world."

Now that she is teaching, West likewise hopes to invite seminarians into the world of ancient language and sacred word. Although introductory Greek is only a portion of her responsibility, West’s students have praised her pedagogy with enthusiasm.

At the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the goal of the first two quarters of Greek is to prepare students to take classes such as "Jesus and the Gospels" or "The Life and Letters of Paul," and to be able to do close readings of the Biblical texts. Often the first two quarters of Greek are among the first classes taken by seminarians, who come from a wide background and may not have studied languages and grammar.

West's goals for this two-part course include helping students learn to read and enjoy Greek, and introducing them to a whole different pattern of thought. "It's exciting for them to recognize a culture gap between the languages of our world and the language of the New Testament--and not just because it was written long ago." For example, Greek has verb tenses and moods--ways of expressing time--that simply don't exist in English. And every word has multiple possible meanings. One exercise West gives students is to look up in a concordance all the possible definitions of kocoy (logos). Then, to experience the various nuances in meaning, they substitute each definition as they read the prologue to the gospel of John: "In the beginning was the word"--or "God's organizing principle"--or "the saying"--or "rationality." Translation is not merely a matter of word-for-word substitution; it always requires making interpretive choices. This discovery can be scary, but also exhilarating: the texts are "much richer and thicker" than students might anticipate. It gives them a reason for wanting to learn Greek.

Motivation, of course, is one of "Coach" West's primary tasks. Many seminarians arrive filled with anxiety, having heard horror stories about Greek. They're so afraid of failing--"losing the big game"--that it’s impossible for them to learn. Therefore, she spends a certain amount of energy helping them to laugh and relax, to get them to a place where they can learn. She encourages them with coaching speeches ("Babies in Athens learn Greek; so can you"), and has been known to bring chocolate to class as a tasteful motivator! However, "the hardest thing about learning Greek has nothing to do with Greek; it's disciplining yourself to keep up." She likens it to doing daily aerobics to train for a sporting event.

On the first day of the first quarter, several things happen. West writes easily discernible Greek words on the chalkboard--for example, jaqdia and vqirsoy and asks students to read and interpret them. They are delighted to recognize the roots of cardiac and Christ. "You already know Greek!" She passes around the first few lines of the gospel of John in a typewritten font, and they discover that it's fairly easy to read. Students anonymously write and turn in the answers to two questions: What do you hope for from this class? What do you most fear? (One student wrote, "I have absolutely no knowledge of Greek. I could get lost in a fraternity district and could not even describe where I am . . . So I'm most afraid of not getting it or of being left behind.")

On the last day of the course, students practice reading the beginning of John's gospel as it appears in original manuscripts--handwritten, and without spaces between the words. She reads aloud the two-question assignment from the first day of class. Both of these activities show students how far they’ve come.

West says that the various techniques she uses are not original, but "I combine a lot of them into a bag of tricks" from which students with different learning styles can choose what is personally useful, not only in elementary Greek class, but in other settings as well.

For visual learners, West uses the chalkboard. A reference book, "Greek to Me," features whimsical illustrations for the rules of grammar. For example, a chicken wearing eggs--an "honest hen with an omelette on"--serves as a mnemonic device for the endings of the "imperfect" verb tense, om, ey, em, olem ese, om, pronounced "on, es, en, ahmen, eta, on." Teaching Assistant Jessica Nipp, who does considerable work with students, appeared one day in class holding toys in each hand and wearing crazy ties. These constituted a walking visual aid for the spelling of soiy, saiy, soiy, pronounced "toys, ties, toys."

Students themselves have become caught up in discovering new ways to learn. For example, perhaps having been inspired by singing "Jesus Loves Me" in Greek, some made up a song to "Are You Sleeping?" in order to memorize the alphabet.

Because "it's a lot more fun to learn as part of a community," West encourages students to work together. Moreover, "as you speak and hear the words, you make more and different connections within your brain." Every day in class, students participate in workbook drills beyond whatever exercises they have practiced at home. A certain amount of rote memorization also happens in class. Weekly quizzes provide incentive to keep up and the reward of immediate feedback on progress. On their own, students have convened a "Greek table" in the refectory.

West refers seminarians who benefit from self-guided computer study to Web sites that provide pronunciation drills. Because the course textbook comes with a compact disc, students can practice vocabulary drills on the computer.

"Then, there's the ordinary stuff that every Greek class has:" a textbook and a workbook, and memorizing vocabulary through cards or lists. Some memorization is unavoidable.

What is unique about West's approach is her concerted effort to dispel anxiety. She hopes that students who have gotten used to the water during the first two quarters will be motivated to learn more advanced strokes in their other New Testament courses, where they can devote more refined attention to linguistic detail.

She says, "I love teaching in general, and learning from students. It's effective to the extent that students are willing to commit themselves to learning. I have wonderful students here; they run an enormous range. It's a joy to teach when students are anxious to learn, and anxious to share with each other as a community of learners and a community of teachers."