Getting Specific: The Problem of Vocabulary

To keep discussion going on issues of biblical Hebrew and Greek pedagogy, we offer (what we hope are) specific questions and thoughts on particular issues in second language learning. This post in the series focuses on vocabulary.

The Problem of vocabulary teaching and learning is that it has no context. Words are meaningless without context. Take a Spanish speaker learning English for example. For a feline house pet, the Spanish speaker knows ‘gato’ natively. So at the Spanish speaker’s English-as-a-Second-Language class, the teacher passes out flash cards with ‘gato’ on one side and ‘cat’ on the back. Or better yet, one side has a picture of a gato and the other side reads ‘cat’. The Spanish speaker makes gato equivalent to ‘cat’ in his mind. Then, perhaps to pay for the ESL class, the Spanish speaker takes a job on a farm. One day the farmer says to the Spanish speaker, “Put the cat back in the barn.” The Spanish speaker is perplexed, seeing no gato. There’s only the forklift they’ve been using. Huh (or Que?)? thinks the Spanish speaker.

‘Cat’ doesn’t mean anything by itself. But in a context, it can be used to connote something meaningful. And in a different context, its meaningful connotation might be different. The context which the ESL teacher assumed was that of ‘cat – feline pet’. And because of the teacher’s imprecision, the student was not able to adapt to the context offered by the farmer which was ‘cat – abbreviation for Caterpillar, a company who makes forklifts and such things. ‘Cat’ doesn’t mean anything intrinsically, but language users do use it as a symbol to communicate. And symbols can be used in a variety of contexts.

This is an important issue to consider when thinking about how to do vocabulary. Not doing it is not an option. Calvin rightly points out that this leads to frustration in too much time feeling lost in a lexicon. So how do we best approach it? Is there a way to add context to our vocabulary teaching and learning? The Cohelet project uses a communicative approach (which means it seeks to teach/use biblical Hebrew like a language used by some living native speaker) to fill in the blanks. While there are definite benefits to this, its impractical. Why not just take a modern Hebrew ulpan? You’ll reap virtually the same benefits, and have communicative use of a language that has living native speakers.

The classroom vocabulary approach to which I’ve been exposed (before I got into an ulpan) urges students to learn vocabulary in more-or-less a traditional ‘flash card’ sense, but still consult lexica even when a meaning seems apparent. In this way of teaching, vocabulary should be a big focus of the brand new student, and then reviewed on a yearly basis (this assumes that the student is moving along in a reading program). The inbetween time is used for grammar and syntax. So while we may have learned חיל as ’strength’ in terms of vocabulary, we must still consider the context and go to the lexicon to make a proper decision. In Hab 3.19, ‘wealth’ might be a better English rendering than ’strength’. But vocabulary alone won’t get you there, and neither will sight reading if you associate חיל to strength in your head.

Adam’s body chart is helpful because it provides a context: the body. Evertbody gets that. But what about other contexts. What about when ראש is used to connote the ‘first of something’ rather than the head of a human? Can we somehow provide context for that too? We can search how often a word occurs, but do we know the frequency of its semantic senses? Lets use ראש. How many times does it refer to a head? and how many to something else? and how many something else’s are there?

When it comes to actually using vocabulary tools, we have to be practical. A flash card with רֹאשׁ on the front and every possible sense on the back is impractical for the beginner, but maybe not the intermediate or advanced student. A one-size-fits-all vocabulary solution is not the answer. No matter how humble Mike is about his lack of Greek vocabulary, I’m sure that if we both used tailored-to-us vocabulary lists, his would be much more advanced than mine.

Karyn would remind us to make a specific goal. What do you want to be able to do with your vocabulary? Already our goals are different from languages with living native speakers. We don’t need to speak with living native speakers. We need to read and vocalize fixed texts, and be able to describe what we have read and vocalized in those texts. So, frequency of a word is an efficient way to go at it, but we are not computers. I don’t process and process and process data like a computer. Grouping vocabulary items into a relatable category (like anatomy) is very helpful mnemonically. How else may we add context? And what would be different for first-year and second-year and so on students? Can we make better flash cards? Should we make flash cards at all?