Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 7:39 AM, nebarry AT verizon.net 
<nebarry AT verizon.net>wrote:

>
>
>  From: K Randolph kwrandolph AT gmail.com
> Date: Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:32:24 -0800
>
> I have given some thought on how I would teach Biblical Hebrew, were I to
> be
> a professor. While I would make use of some of the concepts known to people
> learning Hebrew as a second language, such as teaching a certain amount of
> grammar, my main goal would be reading fluency; “thru analysis and root
> processing” only to be later, much later if ever. And I would admit to
> students that there are gaps in our knowledge of Biblical Hebrew.<<
>
> I had beginning Hebrew from Al Groves at WTS.  He certainly didn't ignore
> "analysis and root processing," but he also had us reading out of Judges by
> the third or fourth week of class.  For him it was a both/and, not an
> either/or, and I have always appreciated his approach.
>
> Barry
>
> You can accuse me of overstating the case. It is impossible to excise
“analysis and root processing” totally from reading. After all, one needs to
recognize what forms he is reading. And recognizing roots helps understand
the vocabulary. (Though one needs to be careful about false attributions to
roots.) What I am looking at is what would be my main theme in teaching? For
example, most professors I know of would blanch at the idea of encouraging
their students to use an analytical lexicon for class work. But I would
rather my students “cheating” but getting into the text, than becoming
bogged down and frustrated doing an analysis for which they are not
prepared. Therefore I would develop a curriculum concentrating on reading
for understanding rather than specifically testing for linguistic ana

By the way, what is WTS?

Karl W. Randolph.