The New Method

[Jameson Orndorff <jtorndorff@gmail.com>]

coi lo tadni .e lo ctuca mi'e .kribacr.

Greetings! As some of you may already know, myself as well as others have been teaching lessons on IRC for the last couple months with some pretty encouraging results, and I wanted to share some thoughts with the community about the method and "path" I/we use in our lessons. There is a Google Wave that is being compiled of our work, which I hope can be used as the foundation not only for a new learning hard copy text (incorporating xorlo and dotside) but as the basis for an online interactive lesson, the details of which I'd like to outline here and open for questions and comments.


The biggest change in teaching methods and the one thing that I've noticed having the best impact is the up-front teaching of terminators; their use, and why they are important and necessary. Only after establishing this basis do we teach {cu} and elision, and this method has produced stronger understanding in when they are needed and why they are useful. I am also putting a stronger emphasis on teaching only the necessary terminology when absolutely needed. We basically go through as much as we can using only the terms {selbri}, {bridi}, and {sumti}. This has allowed more ground to be covered earlier, which then provides more of a basis and contrast for the student to then better grasp the more complex forms and terminology that comes later. 


Without further ado, this is a rough outline to our new methods, in the order in which they are taught:

• General introduction - a bit on "thinking lojbanically", the terms sumti, selbri, and bridi, a few sample bridi using only simple KOhA like {mi} {do} and {ti}, and trying to convey the differences between English and lojban and why selbri, sumti, and bridi don't really exist in English.
• A more detailed look at place structure, and how to play with it - the rules for sliding sumti around, and also introduce FA.
• Simple tanru, using as diverse of a vocabulary as we can muster. We teach with great emphasis that ANY time two selbri are adjacent in text, they form a tanru. This emphasis and the fact that no terminators have been introduced as of yet turns out to be a great aid in getting tanru formation and proper sumti termination / {cu} usage correct.
• {lo ... ku} and possibly {la} (brivla version only) - No specific mention that {ku} may be left out is made. Stress the openness of xorlo {lo} and its specific use, and give examples that are contrary to English thought - {lo cnino ku}, {lo xunre ku}, etc.
• At this point, a brief on {ko}, {ma}, {mo}, and maybe a brief mention of attitudinals and vocatives. (It's hard to put these off since they are so frequently used, but I'd make the case that they can wait a bit.)
• {be ... bei ... be'o} - Again, making the case that the terminator is necessary. Strong examples help here. Usually the idea of nesting these within a tanru is easily taught and understood. Make a connection with the earlier lesson about place structure in that the "first" sumti after a selbri is going to be the x2.
• SE. State that you are essentially creating a new selbri with a new place structure - this is a good time to potentially introduce the terms {gismu} and {brivla}.
• {NU ... kei}. I only really mention {du'u} and {nu} since they are the simplest and by far the most common. {su'u} is potentially worth a mention. As always, strong detailed examples help.
  
• {cu} and terminator elision. By this time, the user is going to start seeing very bulky phrases with 3, 4, 5 or more terminators at the end of their jufra. What a mess! {cu} becomes a lot easier to teach in terms of the "levels" it can cut through by teaching it right after NU.
• {fi'o ... fe'u} and BAI. Since this lesson comes after terminator elision, {fe'u} should be mentioned but shown that it can be elided.Teaching {fi'o} first opens up a lot of options and gets the students more comfortable with tags in general. 

Clearly there is still a lot to teach at this point: tenses, aspects, connectives, fu'ivla, lujvo, etc. But I think the outline above covers a strong majority of the structural aspects of lojban and have had great success and reasonable retention when teaching students using this method. 


As for the web-based lessons, I had the idea of writing out lessons in this form (teaching more or less the full grammar in its basics) with one pass and branding it "Level 1". "Level 2" will then be available to the user as a direct overlay on the existing material. That is to say, that by checking a box on the website or something, they can cause new text to mix in with the existing lessons (probably of a different color). So the introduction chapter will have the same Level 1 text, but will also expand upon those ideas and possibly introduce more terminology for level 2. The {lo} / {la} chapter can expand to detail {le} and the other use of {la} as well as inner / outer quantifiers in level 2. The NU chapter can explain some of the finer points of NU and some of the other ones, {ni}, {ka}, {se du'u} vs. {du'u}, etc. Level 3 will just be another overlay with the absolute full detail of the language.


I await your comments and suggestions.