Is it feasible for nonfluent instructors to teach Biblical Hebrew by communicative principles? If it is feasible, will communicative instruction enhance postsecondary learning of a classical language? To begin answering these questions, two consultants representing second language acquisition (SLA) and technology‐assisted language learning led 8 Biblical Hebrew instructors and a graduate assistant through a 3‐year process involving study of SLA principles, development of Biblical Hebrew classroom manuals, training of teachers, and field‐testing of materials with more than 90 students in 7 institutions. More than two‐thirds of the students and all instructors found the communicative approach both effective and preferable to grammar‐translation and audiolingual methods customarily employed for learning classical languages.
The field of Second Language Acquisition has long since reached consensus that the most effective way to teach a foreign language is through “Communicative Methods” that immerse students in the language as soon and as fully as possible, requiring them to hear and speak—not translate—the new language. Are there lessons from this we can learn for teaching classical languages such as Greek and Hebrew? Below is an edited transcript of a panel sponsored by the National Association of Professors of Hebrew at the 2017 conference of the Society of Biblical Literature. The publication of Paul Overland’s textbook, Learning Biblical Hebrew Interactively (2016), provided the occasion for a group of Hebrew language instructors to reflect together on the challenges and possibilities of Second Language Acquisition communicative methods for teaching Biblical Hebrew.
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