Features of studying classical Greek and Latin in the process of teaching theology

Abstract

The need to study the characteristic features of teaching classical languages within the framework of theological education is primarily conditioned by constant changes in approaches to educational methods and strategies, in particular, to linguistic training of specialists. The study used such methods as pedagogical and contextual analysis, comparative, and analytical and synthetic methods. The purpose of this study was to investigate the specifics of teaching the basics of classical languages in higher educational institutions in theological specialities. With this in mind, an analysis of Ukrainian and Polish curricula on classical linguistic training was carried out. In particular, it was pointed out that the main purpose of studying Latin and ancient Greek is the ability to translate classical works of art and religious texts. The analysis of educational programmes showed that its main characteristics were such as the study of aphorisms and idioms, lexical minimum (up to 300 words), attention to syntactic constructions, the development of orthoepic and spelling skills, a combination of traditional and interactive methods and educational materials, translation of texts that differ in genre, style, and time of writing. In Polish curricula, more attention was paid to historical linguistics and comparative studies, in particular, the comparison of Latin and ancient Greek, as well as other European languages. The main subtopics of the linguistic sections were indicated: orthoepy (pronunciation, stress, diphthongs, alphabet), phonetics (vowels and consonants, long and short sounds), morphology (grammatical structure, grammatical categories, inflections, conjugation), syntax (subject and predicate matching, word order, peripheral constructions, functions of sentence members, specifics of subordinate clauses). In the future scientific perspective, this paper can be used to develop new educational programmes to improve the classical training of students, compare the educational experience in teaching Latin and ancient Greek in various fields