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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: "Paul Zellmer" <pzellmer AT digitelone.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu
  • Subject: Language Laws
  • Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 01:13:10 +0800


Clayton,

What you state seems intuitive, but do you have any study that would back it up? Such definitive statements as you make require a broad based study involving different teachers and different pools of potential students. Otherwise, you present hypothesis as law.

My experience is that motivation is more a determining factor to the number of students who participate than does the work that is involved. I would expect that, given the same pool of potential students, someone like Bryan Rocine, who presents the learning of Hebrew as something doable and worthwhile, would have more attend classes than would an instructor who came to the class with the sentiments that you express, namely, that a study of the actual language is hard and expected to be done only by a few.

Again, in my experience, the ones who have received training in the mere use of tools have nearly all stopped using even those tools within a relatively short time frame (2-5 years or less). On the other hand, those who are brought through a more complete study of the language by a motivating instructor have a much higher rate of long-term usage of the original texts. So, shout as you may in proclaiming your point of view, what you state as law flies in the face of my experience both in the States and abroad.

All the best,

Paul Zellmer


You wrote:

Clayton Javurek E-MAIL: javurek AT asu.edu
Here is the bottom line:
NUMBER OF STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN A BIBLICAL LANGUAGE CLASS IN INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO THE AMOUNT OF MEMORIZATION REQUIRED IN THE CLASS.
If you want to teach the biblical languages to the greatest number of persons, you have to minimize the amount of memorization required. This is what I try to do. I do not care if they are learn the language thoroughly or not. I do not care if they become original thinkers and can sight read the text. What I do care is that they have face to face exposure with the original text is the most convenient way possible.
If you are only concerned that persons learn the language thoroughly, then automatically expect that the number of students in class will be very, very low.
This law is inflexible and absolute.
Why? People, like electricity and water, generally search for the path of least resistance. Memorization is resistance to learning a language. People will try to find ways around the memorization. If they cannot find those ways around it, they will leave your language class.
YOU CAN TAKE THAT TO THE BANK!
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