Self-Tutored Reading and Writing of Biblical Hebrew

Can the Hebrew Bible teach beginners to read and write? The answer is yes, if the learner uses a database from German Bible Society and then develops learning technology which triggers skill practice, influencing the motivation and ability of learners. This is one of the aims of the Europe Union project EuroPLOT (http://www.eplot.eu/home). During 2012 our project will develop the second prototype of PLOTLeaner, and we will continue to explore how the Hebrew Bible can be used as an intelligent tutoring corpus for Hebrew language learning (cf. www.3bmoodle.dk). In the present phase of participatory user-centered development, we are testing the effect and efficiency of this approach to corpus-driven language learning in Copenhagen, Gothenburg and Madagascar. We are exploring to what degree a persuasive tutoring system can motivate the learner to improve his reading skills through reflection on interpretative tasks and to increase mastery in writing through typing text from the Bible. We are also experimenting with a transliteration based on Modern Israeli pronunciation, and we are using glosses to support vocabulary learning from texts. The goal is for learners to be motivated to achieve autonomy, mastery and purpose. The paper will discuss our data on persuasive learning from questionnaires, interviews and think-aloud observation in order to substantiate our case for self-assessment in reading and typing. Our hope is to be able to collaborate with fellow teachers to enhance corpus-driven self-determination and persuasive tutoring. We will suggest ways for other course developers and teachers of online courses to reuse and repurpose this approach.