Last Sunday, I taught my 1st Hebrew Class as a Sunday School option at my church. I have 6 students who will be taking the plunge into classical Hebrew (The youngest student that I have will be entering the 7th grade this coming September, which is pretty cool). The purpose of this summer class is to provide a basic primer to this ancient language. We will be learning the Aleph bet, vowels, syllabification, nouns (singular, plural, and with pronominal suffixes), some Qal verbs, and doing tons of vocab. The pace will be slow, but I think I will be able to provide a nice foundation to the language this way. Hopefully most of the students will want to continue learning Hebrew at the end of the summer, so that we can really begin to work through an actual introductory grammar come this fall. I am currently planning on using Bonnie Kittel’s text. I am really looking forward to working with this class!!!
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Biblical Hebrew is Now for Sunday School Classes9 comments to Biblical Hebrew is Now for Sunday School Classes |
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Copyright © 2013 משלי אדם by Adam Couturier - All Rights Reserved |
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Adam, that sounds great! Two questions: first, what is your goal for this summer course (I’m sure D&T will be happy to see someone asking this question)? What is it that you want your students to be able to do by the end of it.
Second, I’d be really interested in various updates over the course of the summer. Especially in how you teach Qal verbs. I’m sure I could get this from you in person, but I imagine your other readers would find the information interesting as well.
Calvin, I have the following goals for this class (in no particular order):
1. That the students who are taking this class will experience the benefits of knowing biblical Hebrew.
2. That the “benefits” of knowing biblical Hebrew will create enthusiastic life-long students of the language.
3. To create a basic foundation for understanding the rudimentary elements of the language. (I am using this class as a preparatory class for the fall semester).
4. Create a non-threatening environment to begin a language odyssey.
I would be glad to update you guys over the course of this class. While this creates a ton of work for me (I have to get cracking on my visual vocabulary sheets), I am really excited.
Wish I could take your class, Adam! Whenever you want to do some teaching in Juarez, let me know…
Good to hear you are starting a Hebrew class! Learning Hebrew vocabulary is a critical part of making students feel they are progressing. Start with the really common Hebrew words first, and they will make great progress!
Matt, I wish you were in my class. And you will be the first to know when I make it to Juarez.
Thanks for stopping by, and for the encouragement. I thought about teaching vocab with that idea in mind; however, seeing I am not tethered to a grammar this summer I will be taking a different approach. I am requiring my class to learn words that one would normally find in a particular context. See my resource page for more on that concept.
Adam, I’m interested to see how this goes. My gut feeling is that somewhere between the two ideas is probably the place to be. What I mean by that is that I would worry that students, by not seeing the words often when they translate would not retain them as well. However, I love the idea behind your pictorial vocab sheets. I think my preference might be to use the pictorial idea, and so teach words that one will find in specific contexts, but to combine that with the most often used words.
I could be wrong about the retention thing though.
I’d certainly be interested in reading updates. Hebrew pedagogics is a subject that interests me almost as much as canonical exegesis.
Phil, I will gladly keep you updated on the progress of the class, and my pedagogical choices.