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Teaching Hebrew in Nairobi
Dear friends,
Let me start with an update about my friend Isaac's baby, Williams, who was urgently needing heart surgery. By God's grace, the funds were quickly raised for Williams and his parents to travel from Kenya to India. Thanks to all of who you gave and prayed.
The harder part ended up being the process of Williams getting his passport and the whole family getting their visas and medical clearance to fly. But, a few days ago, they finally made it to India.
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And, just yesterday, Williams had his surgery. Happily, the surgeon said it was a success.
There will be much more for Williams and his parents to navigate in the coming months and years, but we praise God for this good news.
My teaching trip to Nairobi
I went to Nairobi last month to teach an intensive, week-long class of Biblical Hebrew. Thanks for your prayers. I think it was a fruitful time. Let me tell you about it and, along the way, share more about my philosophy of language teaching.
The students were several local pastoral residents (including Isaac, who was still waiting on going to India) and a couple of Americans: our friend Mike and one of his daughters. These residents had just completed their first semester of Hebrew, and this intensive class aimed to both reinforce Hebrew they'd already begun to learn and introduce new Hebrew.
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We spent most of each day alternating between two kinds of activities. The first kind was a series of so-called Total Physical Response exercises, in which students heard and sometimes spoke the language in connection with corresponding actions. For instance, I might command a student in Hebrew: "Arise, and go to Jerusalem!" (Certain place names were taped around the classroom.) That student would then do as commanded, and then I or another student might narrate what just happened.
The ultimate goal, of course, is not to become adept speakers of Hebrew. The goal is to become fluent readers. Why then do exercises like this? These exercises are aimed at helping students internalize common grammatical inflections in an immediate way, so that when they encounter those forms in their Bible, they fluently understand the meaning.
Research on language learning suggests that it's especially advantageous for grammar knowledge (versus vocabulary knowledge) to be acquired in a more inductive way. The idea then is to allow students to meet various grammatical forms, again and again, within meaningful communication that they can understand. (This does not rule out the value of explicit grammar teaching, especially for adult learners.)
Another principle here is that the language skill of listening is foundational for the skill of reading, owing to the phenomenon of subvocalization. That is, when we read silently, our brain still sounds out the words. (Speed-reading techniques actually bypass this phenomenon to varying degrees, but I'm not sure anybody wants to learn to speed-read Biblical Hebrew.)
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Our other main class activity was reading together through part of an introductory Hebrew reader (pictured). This reader – an unpublished draft produced by a friend who teaches elsewhere in the world – is a gem of a resource. It contains loads of simple Hebrew sentences that are a part of simple narratives or descriptions of scenes.
This, again, helped students to internalize the sounds of Hebrew, but now (in reading) to become fluent in connecting those sounds not only with their meaning but with their written forms. It also helped the students to get more comfortable with Hebrew syntax, that is, the way Hebrew sentences are often put together.
We also memorized together the Hebrew of Exodus 34:6 and, in song, Psalm 123:2 (a lovely rendition here) and 133:1 (a song I previously taught to students in Zambia). That was a joy.
More thoughts about teaching Hebrew and Greek
As you might gather, we spent most of the week trying to use Hebrew in various ways, and relatively little time talking about Hebrew. (Though, when it came up, we did talk about things like left dislocation or how to identify the subject and predicate of verbless Hebrew sentences.) Let me explain further the why of that approach.
A distinction is sometimes made between knowledge of a language and knowledge about a language. Knowledge of a language means simply being able to use the language, e.g., to read and understand what you're reading. If you're reading and comprehending this newsletter (and I hope you are), you have knowledge of English.
Knowledge about a language means being able to talk analytically about how the language works. That means, for instance, being able to identify that "I was going" is the past progressive form, or being able to talk about the ways in which English encodes things like tense and aspect. Most of us English speakers don't actually have very much knowledge about English.
I think that those studying Hebrew and Greek for ministry should aspire to both knowledge of and about Hebrew and Greek. Knowledge of gives you the foundational ability to interact with the language. It allows you, when you become proficient enough, to read a big chunk of Hebrew or Greek all in one go and basically understand it.
Knowledge about gives you the ability to access the best linguistic research on Hebrew and Greek. That's especially valuable when you're taking the time to slow down and do an exegetical deep-dive on something, and it's necessary for at least two reasons.
First, it's necessary because when we learn a second language, we will tend to develop certain intuitions about it that arise from how our native language works but which don't necessarily carry over. That's not a big deal when, say, you just want to become conversational in French. It matters more when you're trying to rightly handle the Word of God. Knowledge about the language, then, helps you correct those mistaken intuitions. Second, it's necessary because there are no living native speakers of Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek whom we can go to and ask, "What does this mean?"
That said, my pedagogical persuasion is to begin with a focus on inculcating knowledge of the language. For one thing, I think that such knowledge, once acquired, is stickier. It's like the skill of riding a bike; once you get it, it's hard to lose it.
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This is a popular Ancient Greek textbook, Athenaze, which features relatively simple stories in a continuous narrative. I've been using it in online classes for my own continuing education with the skilled teacher Seamus Macdonald.
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Also, it's easier to track with linguistic analysis when you've already had experience with the language that's being analyzed. I noticed this not too long when reading an intro linguistics textbook that highlighted some examples from Chinese. As I read the book's discussion of the particles 着 (zhe) and 在 (zai), the grammatical analysis immediately clicked, because I had already encountered many uses of those particles in meaningful communication.
At the same time, I do think that some instruction about the language can help a student acquire knowledge of the language. Verb charts, for instance, can orient learners and help them know what to expect or to put things together. So it's not a strict "either-or," even early on. It's more a question of how exactly these work together and what the ideal proportion is between implicit acquisition and explicit learning.
Anyway, for the few of you still reading, now you know a little more about how I think about teaching the languages. :) I aspire to keep growing in my Hebrew and Greek and to keep learning and growing as a teacher, since one of my planned roles in Nairobi is to help with teaching both languages in the seminary start-up.
Publishing ministry
On the publishing side of things, one new development is that we've just formed a three-person committee to formalize the process of deciding what books we use in Ekklesia Afrika's non-formal pastoral training program, SOMA. I'll chair the committee, as Ekklesia's publishing director, and I'll be joined by two Kenyan pastors, one of whom recently moved to Mauritius. I look forward to working with these brothers as we undertake a short-term overhaul of the curriculum and then try to draw up a much longer-term ideal to work toward.
Family
This month will be busy as we move out of our current rental and back in with Carol's parents (right around the corner from us), where we'll be until we're able to depart for Kenya. Both of Carol's sisters who live in Prague are also here this month, one with her whole family. So we'll have some fun family reunion time.
Support-raising update
We are now up to just over 70% of the recurring support we need to move to Nairobi. Thanks again to all of you who are giving! We're encouraged that we're getting closer to our goal.
If you aren't already giving to our ministry and would like to donate or set up recurring giving, you can do so online here. Our account number is 111480.
Our timeline for departure to Nairobi depends on support-raising and visas. But if things come together, late November is one possible target.
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Madeleine will turn five this month! This past week she got to enjoy her long-awaited second experience of VBS.
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Daphne is very good at jumping, and now can (holding hands) run up her daddy's legs and flip backward. (But that's not how she got that bruise on her forehead!)
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It's solids time for six-month-old Sylvia! And she loves doing planks these days. Today she also applied for her first passport (and Madeleine applied for her second!).
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How you can pray with us
Give thanks:
- That little Williams got to India and had a reportedly successful surgery
- For a good Hebrew teaching trip to Nairobi (and some encouraging meetings while there)
- For family reunions this month
Please ask:
- For the Lord to continue to preserve and strengthen Williams and his parents
- For strength for our packing and move-out this month
- For the Lord to provide the remaining funds we need to go to Nairobi
- "Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!" (Psalm 57:11)
Thanks again for reading and praying! Please let us know how we can pray for you also.
Warmly,
Tim and Carol, with Madeleine, Daphne, and Sylvia Avery
Bonus: Ekklesia Afrika's director (aka my boss), Ken Mbugua, was interviewed about how Westerners can partner well with African churches. This an interview I mentioned before, but now it's transcribed and edited.
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