second language acquisition

A review of “Living Koine Greek Introduction Part One”

On January 3rd, a review of BLC's "Living Koine Greek Introduction Part One" was posted on the blog "Priceless Eternity." (Or, see their Facebook page.)While the reviewer is anonymous, the blog "is run by a college student... currently aiming for a major in Pre-Seminary Bible and also Mathematics," and I am assuming that the same [...]

By |2023-01-17T08:19:45-08:00January 10th, 2013|ancient Greek, ancient language acquisition, Greek immersion, Greek pedagogy, Koine Greek, Living Koine, second language acquisition|Comments Off on A review of “Living Koine Greek Introduction Part One”

Randall Buth on Peter Burton

I first met Peter at SBL's annual meeting in 1997. A true friendship was formed that has covered the past fifteen years but has now been sadly cut short.  Peter was interested in seeing students study Greek and Hebrew without going through a second or third language to their mothertongue.  I was interested in seeing [...]

2012 Koine Greek Fluency Workshop

It's hard to believe that already a week has gone by since the end of BLC's second Koine Greek Fluency Workshop.  For those of us involved in the planning and/or the instruction, it was obviously a very busy time for us.  I won't recap all that took place, as a detailed summary has already been [...]

On Speaking and Scholarship

Students at our ulpans often ask about the relationship between speaking a language and scholarship. The question arises because most in the related academic fields do not currently advocate or practice speaking the language (and we are all greatful for the generations of scholarship in both Biblical Studies and Classics), yet we at BLC and [...]

The Need for Some Speed in order to Read

I've been reading Frank Smith, Understanding Reading, A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read, fifth edition, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,1994. It is nice to be reading a fifth edition. That says that there has been some previous usefulness and that the author/publisher is trying to keep up. More germane to the [...]

First Steps in CLT

At the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in San Francisco, CA, Brian Schultz presented a paper on "First Steps to get Started in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)." In his paper, he presented three options as to how instructors of biblical languages can begin incorporating some aspects of CLT into their curriculum.

Soma Song

As a result of the BLC's Koine Greek immersion programs, and especially the Workshop for Instructors this past summer in Fresno, CA, there has been growing interest in a song written and composed by BLC's Sharon Alley.  See for example this thread on the b-greek list. Here is an original recording of the song sung [...]

Language is Communication

A couple quick anecdotes. Last year I interviewed a few of my students to get their thoughts about my biblical Hebrew course taught using Communicative Language Teaching.  The one student had the following comment: Learning Hebrew has been easier, so far as to say that I don't translate it.  Like when I was learning French, [...]

Another Report on the Greek Workshop

A while back I wrote my own report on what transpired at this past summer's Greek Workshop held in August 2011 in Fresno, CA. I don't know how I missed it until now, but a couple weeks ago Fresno Pacific University posted its own independent account of the workshop.   Wayne Steffen (editor of FPU's [...]

By |2011-11-04T22:27:43-07:00November 4th, 2011|ancient Greek, ancient language acquisition, Greek immersion, Greek pedagogy, Koine Greek, Living Koine, second language acquisition, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Another Report on the Greek Workshop

Contrasting methodologies

Last week I had to give a talk to my colleagues, the faculty of the School of Humanities, Religion and Social Sciences at Fresno Pacific University.  I chose to speak on the importance of teaching the biblical languages and why I teach biblical Hebrew differently than the traditional way.  In order to help me, I [...]

Reading in context

Frank Smith, one of the foremost psycholingists of our day, has spent much of his time studying the psychology and mechanics of reading. For those of us involved in the instruction of biblical languages, where our stated goal is that our students be able to read the Bible fluently, his research is most relevant. I just finished reading a collection of his essays entitled "Unspeakable Acts, Unnatural Practices". Based on the research he shares in those essays, I suggest at least four ways instructors of biblical languages can adapt their teaching to help their students learn to read more efficiently.

Mini Quiz: Biblical or Modern Hebrew

In my last post, I posted a video clip of one of my class sessions for beginning biblical Hebrew.  One of the accusations sometimes leveled at us who try to teach using Communicative Language Teaching is that we are not using/teaching biblical Hebrew but modern Hebrew.  While it is true that "slip-ups" are possible, generally [...]

Fluency and reading comprehension

A common objection to the communicative approach to teaching biblical languages is: "All we are aiming at is being able to read, not speak, the language." However, Frank Smith in his book "Reading without Nonsense" suggests that in order to truly read fluently, one has to depend less on deciphering the printed matter, and more on a background of already acquired knowledge. Though he does not highlight fluency as part of that body of "already acquired knowledge," it is presupposed throughout (indeed, it is unlikely that a non-fluent English speaker would be reading his work in the first place). It would seem, therefore, that without fluency, it is impossible to read effectively for meaning.

Staving off old age with BLC

Studies in psychology continue to demonstrate that the study and knowledge of multiple languages helps stave off Alzheimer and other cognitive disorders. And the more languages the better. So since BLC is all about learning languages, that would mean that our materials and courses can help you stay younger longer!

By |2011-07-09T17:00:57-07:00July 9th, 2011|Blog, second language acquisition|Comments Off on Staving off old age with BLC

Student-initiated biblical Hebrew week-end

Student motivation to learn and desire to invest even more time learning biblical Hebrew does not seem to be a problem for these students using the "Living Biblical Hebrew" curriculum. They planned a biblical Hebrew week-end retreat.

By |2017-06-12T21:31:41-07:00February 24th, 2011|ancient language acquisition, biblical language fluency, Blog, Hebrew alive, second language acquisition, Student motivation|Comments Off on Student-initiated biblical Hebrew week-end

Intensive Koine Greek, spoken immersion summer session

The Biblical Language Center, at Qibbutz Tzuba, just west of Jerusalem is offering its second annual, immersion Greek SXOLH this summer 2008. Two teachers in class teach in Koiné Greek, 90%+ of the time. Outside languages (e.g. English, Hebrew) are restricted to 10% within the classroom. From the beginning students start to play in the [...]

By |2011-09-14T23:23:20-07:00February 17th, 2008|ancient Greek, ancient language acquisition, Greek immersion, Koine Greek, second language acquisition|Comments Off on Intensive Koine Greek, spoken immersion summer session

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