Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Martin Arhelger" <arhelger AT gmx.de>]

Dear Matthew,

I have read your comments about the easy way you are learning German
with interest. There are many important thoughts in your mail.

But please don't generalise all of your experiences. What has helped you
does not necessarily help others. Everybody has a different way of
learning.

An example: I had to learn English and French in the way you did - and I
always hated it, because this was totally against my manner of acquiring
languages. What I needed was a systematic and logical way through a
language FROM THE BEGINNING and this I got while learning Hebrew in the
traditional manner but not while learning English or French in the
manner that you described.

This is doubtless a difference in our personalities. I was always fond
of a clear system with logic, correlation, method  and scheme. Later I
studies mathematics.

You wrote: "Research shows (we were told) that this sort of exercise
gives the highest learning retention of any form of learning." I have
heard a lot of such "research" (often falsely called "scientific
research"). But in many cases I doubt their results. Example: There are
two methods A and B to acquire a new thing and in a test 100 people have
to use method A and another 100 method B. After seeing that method A has
better results in 80 cases they say that method A is better. What a
nonsense! Perhaps you belong to the 20% in which method B is better.
With the same "scientific" logic it's possible make a survey about the
diopter of the glasses of 100 people; and then you calculate the average
diopter and prescribe the same glasses for everybody.

The most important things for a teacher are:
- to instruct his pupils that they have to realise the best way of
learning for themselves.
- to present helps for ALL sort of learners.

Just some thoughts ...

Martin Arhelger,
Germany