Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

I would like to thank those who have commented on the questions or
have corresponded directly.

It seems safe to conclude that there are few, in any, on this list who are
using biblical Hebrew as a means of teaching biblical Hebrew.

It was interesting that no one claimed that a reading only methodology is
more efficient for learning to read than a spoken or a mixed methodology.
SLA research confirms that that is the case, even for non-phonetic based
scripts like Chinese.

For number 2, the only options widely available for decades have been
through another dialect like modern Hebrew, or during the past few, years
a long trip to BLC for a summer-only program.

Number 3 generated alot of intersting comments, most of which deserve
their own thread. Some should receive serious academic discussion,
others may have some answers already by clarifying what the actual
issues are. It would do any of them justice to try to group a discussion
here.

I would like to invite anyone who thinks that an academic discussion of the
pros and cons is desirable to consider presenting a paper to a new
Consultation at SBL (hopefully open for 2010). The "Biblical Language
Consultation" will include a focus on the audio-oral dimension of the
languages as it integrates with pedagogy as well as linguistics,
rhetoric, interpretation, and the needs for materials like dictionaries that

a bidirectional pedagogy may engender. It would be especially nice to
have a presenter in 2010 on 'why oral-aural pedagogy should not be
pursued for biblical Hebrew". If interested in seeing such a section set
up at SBL please email me offlist.

Again, thank you for the responses.

Randall Buth


----- Original Message -----
> From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth AT gmail.com>
> To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 5:19 AM
> Subject: [b-hebrew] Survey Question about use of Biblical Hebrew in class
>
>
> > A survey question.
> >
> > How many on this list are learning Biblical Hebrew in a spoken BH
> classroom?
> >
> > If not, is this because
> >
> > 1. a belief that non-spoken methods are more efficient.
> >
> > 2. for practical reasons, a spoken BH class is not available for you.
> >
> > 3. a belief that BH is special/dead and shouldn't be spoken as a class
> language.
> >
> > Thank you for your responses.
> > Randall
>
>


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life