Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

shalom adon Lyosov

>  Linguistically speaking, claims about internalisation of BH via 
>BH ulpan (=uncritical mixture of languages) are ridiculous and 
>methodologically dangerous. 

Please be careful to distinguish between what we actually do in these 
ulpans versus what some people from the other side of the world 
say about them. It appears that you have jumped to some rather 
strong conclusions based on misrepresentations.

An uncritical mixture of languages is anathema. 

On the positive speaking real BH in class turns out to be very effective 
pedagogically for the students. And speaking the language does 
lay down first layers of internalization every bit as much as if done 
in a Goethe Institute or Alliance Francaise for German and French.
It turns out that all languages are equally dead (or alive) in the 
classroom and can even be learned from people who speak them 
as a second language.

shavua tov,

Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Lecurer, Biblical Hebrew
Rothberg International School
Hebrew University