Category Archives: Pedagogy

Kids learning Hebrew

Hebrew quizThis is a quiz from 7-year-old Éva. I dictated the names of Hebrew letters and she wrote them down, except for #3, which asked the question, “What sound does בּ make?” She’s doing a terrific job learning Hebrew this year. She can identify all the Hebrew characters by name, tell you what sound they make, and write them all. She can put a set of letters in alef-bet order. She knows some vocabulary and will soon start sounding out and pronouncing words. I hope she keeps this up for the rest of her life. Just think what an advantage she will have!

Oh, and did I mention that I’m teaching her (and her brother) via the internet? We’re using Google video-chat and an eLearning classroom. Her mom scanned her quiz and emailed it to me. I love technology.

Eva

Visual Tools for Learning Hebrew

Some people are visual learners (I’m one of them). Here are a few visual charts to help students remember some details of Biblical Hebrew. Click on the images to download the full size versions.

When I teach weak verb forms, I like to draw attention to the fact that the Qal imperfect, imperative, and infinitive construct often follow similar patterns. I refer to this diagnostic grouping as the Qal Trio (quicker to say than “the Qal imperfect, Qal imperative, and Qal infinitive construct). If you look at my Weak Verb chart (Front, Back), you will see reference to the Qal Trio and how it appears in some of the weak verb categories (look for my “traffic light” for the Qal trio). Rebeckah Groves brought this trio to life with this drawing, which helps students remember which aspects are part of the Qal Trio.

Qal Trio

Continue reading →

Another vocabulary resource: Davar

A few weeks ago I reviewed some Hebrew vocabulary resources (Part One, Part Two) that readers submitted for my first B2B contest. There are a few vocabulary resources that were not mentioned, but which I want to draw attention to. The first one is a project from The University of Auckland (that’s in New Zealand, folks). Davar is a “dynamic illustrated vocabulary resource” for Biblical Hebrew. The academic leadership for the project is Dr Tim Bulkeley and Dr Lynne Wall (I’m looking forward to hopefully meeting Tim at the upcoming SBL meeting in New Orleans). This project has been designed with a great deal of thought. Their design rationale can be found here. Basically, Davar is a database of web “cards” for Hebrew vocabulary. Each card has animation showing the word being typed from right to left, audio to hear the word, visual images illustrating the meaning, mnemonics to trigger a gloss, parsing, a verse with the word in context, and a semantic field (based on the domains found in the Louw-Nida Greek Lexicon).

Students can access the vocabularies online without registering (actually, anyone can access them). Teachers can register to gain access to the vocabularies in order to provide customized lists to their own students. The next step of participation is as a “contributor.” This level of access allows you to add or change information in the vocabulary database. A peer review process is in place to make sure all changes are appropriate before they go “live.”

So, what does it look like? Here are some screen shots from my MacBook Pro running OS X version 10.6.1 (and using Foxfire 3.5.5), the Hebrew vowel pointing is not quite lined up with the consonants. I’d be interested to hear how other people are viewing this resource.

This first image is the opening splash.
Davar

Here we have the vocabularies navigation page.
Davar

This final shot is an individual vocabulary window.
Davar

As far as I can tell, there are 554 vocabulary entries (so far). This is a work in progress, and they are definitely willing to have people come on board with them to help out. They also acknowledge that no project is perfect and that there is always a different way to do things–but this is somewhere to start!

Take a look, let me know your thoughts. Or, better yet, if you see Tim at SBL, talk to him about the project!
Here’s who to look for:
Tim Bulkeley

Ugaritic Transliteration Bookmark

Ugaritic Font Bookmark
Working in ancient languages requires patience when working on a computer. This little bookmark is a handy reminder of the keyboard map for inputting cuneiform and transliteration using the Durham font set. I created and used this bookmark frequently when typing up papers for our Ugaritic class. You can download a PDF with two copies of the bookmark on it here.

The top line is the cuneiform (which, I really think students should learn and continue to use rather than just transliteration), the second line is the transliteration for that character, and the bottom line (greyed out) is the US English keyboard equivalent. Even if you are not trying to type up translation worksheets or charts, the bookmark is a handy reminder of the cuneiform transliteration.

As I said, I think students should not learn the cuneiform solely to know the alphabet, but to be able to actually read/analyze/vocalize texts. With the ability to access high resolution texts (the Inscriptifact database, for instance), knowing the cuneiform is rewarded.

Technology in the Classroom: Not always what you think

A.K.M. Adam (on his blog AKMA) pointed out the article from Inside Higher Education which reported a study about technology in the classroom.

Campus Technology, likewise, has an article discussing the report. Read their summary here.

The surprising (really??) result is that faculty think they do a great job and students don’t think their profs do such a great job. That is not the only disparate pair. IT departments and faculty don’t see eye to eye about how the other handles their role in technology in the classroom.

But as LeVar Burton might say, “you don’t have to take my word for it.” Go read the report yourself.

To download the actual report and draw your own conclusions, go here.

Theological “training” outside the box (way outside)

If you read Fred Putnam’s piece about teaching/learning that I mentioned the other day, then you would probably be interested in looking over his very detailed proposal for The New School of Theology.

Here’s a snippet from the proposal, which gives a a basic overview of the vision (later in the proposal are more details):

This paper proposes the creation of a unique graduate school that will prepare Christians to minister and to live in light of their faith by becoming thoughtful, reflective men and women. Its curriculum and pedagogy reflect the conviction that fundamental to good ministry and leadership is the ability to listen to and understand three voices: (1) the voice of the author in whatever text is at hand, especially the text of Scripture; (2) voices that express the opinions, fears, hopes, and concerns of others, and the ideas of their culture; and (3) the voice of their own hearts.

The program has three primary aspects, any one of which would make this program unique: (1) all courses are required/prescribed conversational seminars without testing, grades, or lectures (lectures are public supplements to the overall curriculum); (2) all class texts are primary texts, not textbooks (except in Hebrew I, Greek I, and Music I); (3) music is integral to the program.

The goal of this program is to foster an ongoing conversation, an intellectual and spiritual community of maturing learners—in other words, a place where students and faculty together read, think, converse, and thus learn to live and minister by pondering the most important ideas—the permanent ideas—as they are found in the great texts of the Western world.

His ideas are very intriguing to me and I wonder what others think of this kind of education (both content and methodology). I do wonder what other texts could be included that are not Western (although that might be difficult unless you work with translations). I understand prioritizing Western texts because we live in the Western world, but I would not want to exclude studying other texts and worldviews and would be careful about privileging Western texts as the primary source of important, permanent ideas.

Anyone know someone with a few million dollars to get it started?

New Contest: What Hebrew Textbook did you learn with?

UPDATE: We have our winners–Bob MacDonald, John Murphy, Rick, and Sytze van der Laan. Congratulations!

Time for another B2B contest. This time I want to know what Biblical Hebrew textbook you used when you first learned Hebrew. Leave a comment and tell me the name of the textbook and a little bit about whether you thought it was helpful. What did you like/dislike about the book?

Also, if you have taught Biblical Hebrew to other people, let me know what textbook you chose to use and why.

Your reward for your comments? I’m giving away some Og the Terrible comic books. I’ll put everyone who has contributed a comment into a random generator to select the winners! You can enter more than once by describing your experiences with different textbooks.

    

Get your comments in by October November 10th!

Hebrew Without Whining

Dr. Ellen Davis (Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity) has been spearheading a partnership with Renk Theological College in Southern Sudan.

Listen to her describe what the Sudanese prioritized for their theological training, and why:

A FEW YEARS AGO, when I asked the head of Renk Theological College in Southern Sudan to name his top priority for the school’s faculty and curriculum, he said without hesitation: “We need biblical language teachers.”

I work at persuading American students just to give Hebrew a try, so I was surprised to hear that it was the seminary’s first choice. Moreover, crossing the ocean to teach Hebrew in short spurts seemed like a pedagogical stretch.

The leaders of the college held firm, however, and they were unanimous in their reasoning: “We live in the Old Testament. Ours is a tribal culture, like Israel’s. We are pastoralists and farmers, like the Israelites. And like them, we have suffered terribly in war and exile, and from oppressive imperial regimes. The Bible is our story, and our people must have it in their own languages. Why should we read it in English and Arabic, the languages of colonialism? Why should we translate it from those languages and not from the original? We all speak several languages; we know how much difference a translation makes.”

Read her full article, “Hebrew Without Whining,” here.

The Value of Languages

Gary Mannings and Brooke Lester have both pointed out two quotes that I reproduce below. I’ve paraphrased them numerous times myself in my classes and in defense of learning the biblical languages.

Do I understand Greek and Hebrew? Otherwise, how can I undertake, as every Minister does, not only to explain books which are written therein but to defend them against all opponents? Am I not at the mercy of everyone who does understand, or even pretends to understand, the original? For which way can I confute his pretense? Do I understand the language of the Old Testament? critically? at all? Can I read into English one of David’s Psalms, or even the first chapter of Genesis? Do I understand the language of the New Testament? Am I a critical master of it? Have I enough of it even to read into English the first chapter of St. Luke? If not, how many years did I spend at school? How many at the University? And what was I doing all those years? Ought not shame to cover my face?

— John Wesley, “An Address to the Clergy,” in Works X:491.

One who made it his life’s work to interpret French literature, but who could only read it in an English translation, would not be taken seriously; yet it is remarkable how many ministers of religion week by week expound a literature that they are unable to read save in translation!

– H. H. Rowley, Expository Times, LXXIV, 12, September, 1963, p. 383