Classical Greek for high school: "From Alpha to Omega" and Galore Park curricula

[serendipitous journey]

I'm wondering about high school credits for classical Greek language.  My elder child will finish First Form Greek before he begins his high school Greek work, and he really doesn't want to Athenaze (we tried it twice with an online provider and crashed & burned both times, so that is rather a last resort at this point).  I'm looking at doing one of these two things for his upper-level Greek:

1. Galore Park's Greek (Introduction to Classical Greek) which is a GCSE 13+ book and then "From Alpha to Omega"
2. Go straight into "From Alpha to Omega"

First question: is the Galore Park course (prepping for GCSE 13+) worthy of high school credit?

Second question, I have in some very old notes that completing "From Alpha to Omega" would be the equivalent of High School Greek 1 & 2.  I think that the program is essentially a one-year intro college course.  So does the two-year high school credit sound right?  Or, if we do Galore Park's Greek first and spend about a year on it, could/should I give credit for 3 years high school Greek study?

Edited May 2, 2020 by serendipitous journey

21 hours ago, serendipitous journey said:

I'm wondering about high school credits for classical Greek language.  My elder child will finish First Form Greek before he begins his high school Greek work, and he really doesn't want to Athenaze (we tried it twice with an online provider and crashed & burned both times, so that is rather a last resort at this point).  I'm looking at doing one of these two things for his upper-level Greek:

1. Galore Park's Greek (Introduction to Classical Greek) which is a GCSE 13+ book and then "From Alpha to Omega"
2. Go straight into "From Alpha to Omega"

First question: is the Galore Park course (prepping for GCSE 13+) worthy of high school credit?

Second question, I have in some very old notes that completing "From Alpha to Omega" would be the equivalent of High School Greek 1 & 2.  I think that the program is essentially a one-year intro college course.  So does the two-year high school credit sound right?  Or, if we do Galore Park's Greek first and spend about a year on it, could/should I give credit for 3 years high school Greek study?

Do you already have a copy of galore park?  The link in your post is for amazon.uk and says it doesn’t ship to the United States.  I have no input for you, sorry, but I am interested in the responses.  Which online provider did you try and what seemed to be the problem with Athenaze?  My daughter used it without issues to the best of my knowledge, but my son will start this year and he is a very different student.

[serendipitous journey]

44 minutes ago, Mom2mthj said:

Do you already have a copy of galore park?  The link in your post is for amazon.uk and says it doesn’t ship to the United States.  I have no input for you, sorry, but I am interested in the responses.  Which online provider did you try and what seemed to be the problem with Athenaze?  My daughter used it without issues to the best of my knowledge, but my son will start this year and he is a very different student.

Yes, I have a copy of the galore park -- I think it's OOP.  

I honestly think the problem with Athenaze is that my son wasn't really studying properly; it was an online provider, so I wasn't enforcing memorization of vocab. & grammar forms; and he doesn't care about Greek in the least.  We used CLRC, which is a provider we really like, and he liked his teacher; but he's also been sick a good deal this year, and the Greek was stressing him, and I didn't think it was worth what it was costing our family. 

Athenaze doesn't teach some important things explicitly.  I think CLRC fills these gaps nicely, but he still prefers more concrete instruction esp. in a subject that's not his favorite.  The Memoria Press language programs are superb at training grammar (horrid at training reading, on the other hand) so I'm sure that a foundation in First Form Greek will really help him.  It may be that it is enough to make Athenaze more comfortable, maybe not. 

I'm considering just re-enrolling him as one option, and this year being very hands-on until he has good study habits established.  On the other hand, I think it is possible that he'd have a richer experience in the From Alpha to Omega but that will require me to learn along with him. and to teach him myself; sometimes it works well for me to teach him, sometimes not so well. !!

Also: If he keeps detesting it I prob. won't make him do tons more.  Not sure. 

[bensonduck]

Have you looked at Introduction to Attic Greek by Mastronarde? It is very much parts to whole like the Forms series but goes much further and is quite in depth. 
Professor Mastronarde also has a website with vocabulary games, grammar fill in worksheets, etc that correlate with his text. 

[serendipitous journey]

On 5/3/2020 at 1:00 PM, bensonduck said:

Have you looked at Introduction to Attic Greek by Mastronarde? It is very much parts to whole like the Forms series but goes much further and is quite in depth. 
Professor Mastronarde also has a website with vocabulary games, grammar fill in worksheets, etc that correlate with his text. 

So: in your opinion, does Mastronarde have enough support for my child & I to learn together?  And does it support reading in Greek?  which seems the weakness of the Form approach.

For teaching,  I probably have access to e-help from someone who knows classical Greek well, but it would be a sort of biweekly check-in and grading for Greek composition work (obviously Greek composing would be very basic as we begin!). 

And: thanks for the recommendation!  He does well with the Form series format, though he more or less detests it.  😉 I will look it over carefully, perhaps DS & I can decide together.  

ETA: looking over it, the introductory materials is certainly easier to read, parse & take in than my "From Alpha to Omega": I'd been worried about my child simply not absorbing the introductory matter in that program.  I'll try to order a copy so we can look at it more closely. 

Edited May 8, 2020 by serendipitous journey

[Bocky]

Galore Park is designed to prep students for the exams they take at the end of 7th grade, so not high school credit worthy, in my opinion. Mastronarde is a college level text, equivalent to Athenaze (which I have taught, both at college and at home). Looking over the contents of Mastronarde, I would say high school Greek 1 could aim to get through chapter 15 - this would be about one semester of Greek in college. Yes, it supports reading - all Ancient Greek courses are designed to get the student translating reading passages as fast as possible.

Languages can be challenging to learn alongside a high schooler. Even with just one student at home now, I find it hard to get enough time to work at a high school level on her preferred language, and I would not be able to learn it seriously without the support of a tutor. My daughter, who was genuinely interested in Japanese, easily out-paced me. My experience (here comes the obnoxious unsolicited advice :- ) is that dragging an unwilling high schooler through a language in which they are uninterested is futile. The enthusiasm and support of expert tutor is essential, in my opinion, as is buy-in from your student.