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New Hebrew textbook a good example for future Greek works

Posted: December 16th, 2011, 11:16 am
by refe
A gentleman that I follow on Twitter by the name of Adam Courtier introduced me to a free PDF version of two upcoming introductory Hebrew textbooks. One takes a more traditional approach, but incorporates many SLA principles, especially in their exercises.

The second texbook, however, is a much bigger departure from traditional Hebrew (or Greek) introductions. It is called Biblical Hebrew: An Illustrated Introduction and it includes a separate volume of illustrated readings that accompanies each lesson. The lessons incorporate Hebrew right away in the section headings, grammatical terminology, even in the exercise instructions (although English is provided as well.) The exercises seem to focus on writing and making associations between Hebrew and native English. The readings are almost entirely in Hebrew using vocabulary and grammar from the lesson. They are designed to be done in groups or pairs and involve a lot of speaking and pictures.

I think this is a great example of a big step forward in the incorporation of SLA principles in ancient language pedagogy. Who is going to do this for Greek?

Here is the volume containing the lessons:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8477225/Textboo ... ly2011.pdf

And the Readings:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8477225/Textboo ... ly2011.pdf

Re: New Hebrew textbook a good example for future Greek work

Posted: December 16th, 2011, 2:05 pm
by James Spinti
The books were written by John Cook and Robert Holmstedt. If you wish to visit the original page, it is here:
http://ancienthebrewgrammar.wordpress.com/bh-textbook/

They are pursuing the possibility of publishing the newer one, but I am not sure what the current status of that might be. They post periodically on items of interest in Hebrew Grammar as well.

James