ִApologies for the clickbaity title! I have really enjoyed learning and writing about Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in these blog posts, so I am going to continue to build on one of the concepts from the last one I wrote. One of the language-learning tasks I mentioned in that previous post was fluency development. When we hear the word “fluency,” most of us think of “complete mastery” of some target language. While anyone who has a complete mastery of a language would in fact be fluent, I am not sure such a person exists. Needless to say, there are a few issues I have with this approach to fluency.
Author: Colton Honeycutt
Originally, I am from the mountains of Southeast Kentucky. I got my Bachelor's in Religion from Berea College, and my Master's in Theology from Emory University. I have taught denominational classes for the Church of God Mountain Assembly on Old Testament and Biblical Exegesis, but my first love are the Biblical languages. I am constantly trying to find the best ways to learn and teach them.
The Beginning: 2012-2015
Central to any journey is the motivation to begin. Like many people who study Ancient Hebrew (and Greek), I wanted to learn the scripture better. When I learned that there were other languages behind the English translations, I HAD to find a way to learn them. I loved studying the Bible, and I knew that the languages of the original texts were the gateway to knowing it better. I had taken a particular interest in the Old Testament and then a great fascination with Hebrew was birthed. I am not sure why I preferred the Hebrew Bible, but I definitely did.
College: 2015-2019
Fast Forward to college, I spent my first 2 years of undergrad taking classes about the background and literary features of the Bible, but I still hadn’t learned Hebrew. Then, my academic advisor (Duane Smith) told me he was going to be teaching Hebrew for the first time since I had been a student at the college, I was STOKED. The following three semesters working though Thomas Lambdin’s Introduction to Biblical Hebrew officially began my journey with Hebrew. Though it was frustrating at times, I managed to make it through Lambdin’s exercises. My last semester of college we didn’t have an official class, but I would occasionally get together with Dr. Smith to read Hebrew together, while I tried to keep up on my own.
Four Strands of Language-Learning
In the last post, we talked about productive and receptive language skills, but there are more skills involved in language learning than these four. Paul Nation talks about “four strands” of language learning. He labels them: meaning-focused input (receptive skills), meaning-focused output (productive skills), language-focused learning, and fluency development. We have already talked about input and output here. This post, then, will focus on what Nation calls language-focused learning and fluency development. Continue reading “There Is Still More Learning To Do!”
Learning Biblical Hebrew can be frustrating sometimes, especially to those who have previously only learned living languages. Having native speakers to whom you can ask questions might be the most advantageous resource when learning a language. Unfortunately, we do not have native speakers with Biblical Hebrew. We can still, however, use modern language learning to help guide our Biblical Hebrew learning.
There are four main language skills that contribute to language learning: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. The more we practice these four skills in Hebrew the greater our facility with Hebrew will grow. Learning a language well involves learning and honing all four of these skills. Yes, you could learn to read the Hebrew Bible without using all of these skills, but you will get the most out of the text when you approach it from multiple avenues. The more tools in the toolkit, the easier the work. It is also worth noting that none of these skills can be neatly divided into their own category. They all feed into and flow out of each other.