What is a Living Language approach?

A Living Language pedagogy treats the biblical language as a real language that is both used to communicate and learned by communicating in the language itself. It implements best practices from the field of Second Language Acquisition to the teaching of biblical languages. Learn more

What makes a Living Language approach distinctive?

Living Language spends the majority of the time engaging students’ listening and speaking skills, while also teaching reading and writing skills.

Why should students learn to listen and speak if the aim is to read?

Listening and speaking skills have been shown by research in Second Language Acquisition to be both indispensable and most effective for producing and bolstering reading fluency.

Will a Living Language approach help my students to be better readers of the biblical languages?

Not only do students confirm it, but instructors who have made the switch to teaching with a Living Language approach are thrilled to report that their own reading comprehension skills have improved.

Is a Living Language approach mainly about adding audio to a curriculum?

No: while audio is key both in and out of the classroom, to be effective it needs to be meaningful communication.  

What is meaningful communication?

Meaningful communication focuses on using the biblical language to communicate thoughts and ideas (not just talk about the language); it is comprehensible at the students’ level; and it grows in complexity as the course progresses.

How does a Living Language approach teach grammar?

All the time!  Grammar is internalized from day one through meaningful communication even before it is explicitly taught.  The result? It takes a fraction of the time to teach grammar.

Can I use a Living Language approach if I’m not fluent in the biblical language?

Yes!  Our curriculum does not assume you can already speak the biblical language.  It is designed so that much of the students’ comprehensible input happens outside the classroom.  Additionally, teaching resources include helps to grow your own fluency in the classroom.

What kind of support is there for those adopting a Living Language approach for the first time?

The curriculum comes with an instructor’s manual, complete with teacher resources (lesson plans, homework assignments, assessments, etc.).  Also, we regularly run pedagogy workshops.

MAIN FEATURES OF OUR ONLINE CURRICULUM:

• Fully Online Textbook: Rather than a print textbook, students use the online interface to do their homework.  This allows for a better student experience that seamlessly integrates the visual, audio and oral components of the curriculum.  Additionally, it allows for much of the homework and assessment to be self-grading.
• Grammar Drills: Audio and written grammar drills, entirely in the biblical language, used for homework to raise student language awareness in meaningful communicative contexts. These online drills are self-grading, and can be repeated by students as often as needed.
• Assessment Quizzes: At regular intervals there are self-graded assessment quizzes that test, in the biblical language, student progress.
• Text and Q&A audio: All texts in the curriculum (whether biblical or non-biblical) come with audio recordings, not just of the text, but of reading comprehension or simple exegetical questions.  These significantly boost the amount of comprehensible input possible outside of classroom time.
• Vocabulary Stories: Non-biblical stories, written, illustrated, and audio format, that introduce new vocabulary and/or grammar.  In addition, these provide the opportunity to test student comprehension of the language in a context where they cannot rely on prior knowledge of the biblical text to assist them.
• Assessment Reading Questions: Self-grading reading comprehension quizzes on all reading texts.
• Accompanying Instructor’s Manual: To help instructors make the transition to a Living Language approach, the manual comes standard when you adopt the curriculum for your class.  Some of its features include:

• • Teacher Training videos
  • Customizable lesson plans for each hour
  • Learning objectives for each teaching session
  • Detailed description of the activities
  • Logistical notes
  • Prop list for each class session
  • Pre-made and customizable “cheat-sheets” to use in class while teaching
  • Detailed instructions for the various pedagogical techniques used
  • Teaching tips
  • Scripted scenarios in the target language for each activity
  • Linguistic notes
  • References with all the vocabulary and verb forms you will need to teach each activity
  • Sample syllabus
  • Assigned homework for each session