Hebrew in Hebrew: Storytelling to Teach Biblical Hebrew vayyiqtol to Beginners in an Immersion Setting

Research leads to recommendations that teachers should use the target language 90% or more in a classroom. This includes all human languages, ancient and modern. Contrary to some expectations, such language teaching can be adapted to include the teaching of complex (strange) structures in ancient languages. A demonstration will be given showing how to teach the vayyiqtol (thematic verb-structure) using biblical Hebrew itself. An easy, humorous story will be taught in biblical Hebrew with TPRS techniques (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling) and the vayyiqtol structures will be introduced in a meaningful and understandable context. This training is important because it leads to an internalization of important pragmatic aspects of Hebrew that enlarge, refine, and go beyond traditional grammatical conceptions. (The audience will have a handout of basic, presupposed vocabulary and the demonstration will include preliminary steps and techniques.)