Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 8:27 PM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 1 September 2010 09:45, Randall Buth wrote:
>> In the field of language teaching, often called
>> "Second Language Acquisition", many programs are taught
>> primarily 'in the language'. This is sometimes called
>> 'immersion', 'partial immersion' (if a small percentage of another
>> language is used), and 'communicative' language teaching.
>>
>
> my understanding of the term 'communicative' language teaching is when
> exercises have an information gap such that students are motivated to
> communicate in order to gain the required information rather than the
> usual empty speech drills.

Yes, that is a part of it. 'communicative' refers to any time the language
is being used for real communication as opposed to 'parroting' or
to not using the language at all.

> My experience with these kind of exercises when teaching English has
> proven their effectiveness but only when the students are willing to
> cooperate.

Progress is made when someone uses the language, of course!

>> In the field of BH, most do not have a training that would
>> facilitate such teaching. Yet quite a few have shown interest over
>> the past years of moving in such a direction.
>>
>> I'm wondering what such people are doing in order to prepare
>> for communicative teaching?
>> How strong of an interest or need would there be for another
>> teachers' immersion program of say,
>> a week plus the weekends at both ends in early August 2011?
>>
>
> I can't make any promises but if I'm not busy at that time and am around
> in Galilee next year I would be interested in seeing how you do these
> groups.

You would be welcome. But if we do a Hebrew seminar in Israel it
would be based in the Judean hills, a little west of Jerusalem.
We are considering a US-based option if that would be better for a
larger number of interested people. The teacher seminar may have
some pre-requisites for participants, not of degrees, but of listening
and interaction. We are still trying to digest what we found in the last
seminar and to see how to tweak it for efficiency.

--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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