Here at Fresno Pacific University, I have been working together with a team of student workers at developing an MP4 Companion to BLC's Living Biblical Hebrew - Introduction Part 1. It is almost finished, and we hope to have it available soon. In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to give you a sneak preview of what it will look like.
In the video, you will see the beta version for the quiz after lesson #2. In the first two lessons (end of week one in a three-unit semester course), students will have been introduced to basic vocabulary through the medium of pictures, all in Biblical Hebrew, without ever relying on any English. In the quiz, as they hear a word or sentence, they need to identify to which of the three pictures it relates. After a brief pause, the correct drawing is revealed.
An advantage of this method is that it bypasses the need for English glosses, and helps the student internalize the language as Hebrew, not as a translation of an English term. Students like it, because it is way more fun than going through vocab lists or flash cards, and as a result, much easier to assimilate and retain. It's a win-win!
Additionally, students are already becoming intrinsically familiar with basic sentence structure while they are learning vocabulary. And after a few lessons, tenses are introduced so that students can begin "feeling" the patterns that mark tenses.
Keep checking the Biblical Language Center's website for when this MP4 Companion will be available. In the meantime, one can always purchase the book with the audio CD (mp3) and get started already. One can start learning Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek in this way.
4 comments:
This is very good! I love the blog, and there is real potential here. Thanks for all the work you guys do.
Nick Ellis
This looks great!!!
I'll be passing it along to some of my Latin and Greek students to see if they are interested. I can still get the answers right too! :)
Hope you guys are well.
I have to say that I have been hoping for a video based version since I first heard of the Biblical Lang. Center's Greek and Hebrew course work. In fact I hesitated for about 6 months in purchasing, with the hope of finding an alternative that was more interactive(video based at least). Alas, it just doesn't exist in the same quality or quantity as R. Buth's method. I'm looking forward to mp4 disks for both Hebrew and Greek. Kudos to the Team!
I hope to use these the next time I teach first year biblical Hebrew!
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