Karyn asked us to elaborate on the content of our hypothetical syllabus. Here we being a series of discussions on the content of the hypothetical class. Sorry Karyn, this might take a while.
Week 1 – Alef-Bet
The goal of this class is to introduce the Alef-Bet to students and give them tools to practice so in a week’s time they will have learned the Alef-Bet and be able vocalize the Hebrew consonant (with a supplied short /a/ vowel, so a sound can be made). While the students will get what they need (to learn they need more) in only 40 hours over 20 short weeks, this class, and others, moves very, very slow from the teacher’s perspective. In a university setting with Mon, Wed, Fri classes, you learn the Alef-Bet on Monday and have to know it for class on Wed, which is completely do-able. But church-class students, as ours were, aren’t in school and have other things to do. So they get a week.
We’ve always told the students that the Alef-Bet is the hardest part for us Westerners cause it looks so different from what we’re used to. That’s mostly true, and it makes them feel better.
There are a few resources we’ve used in beginning Hebrew classes to teach the Alef-Bet (other than a white-board) the primary of which are their BBH textbook and workbook. However, while the BBH workbook offers many helpful exercises for new students, many parts of it are terribly uncreative. The first exercise intended to teach the Alef-Bet is nothing more than repeated composition. Composition is very necessary (here, not always), but there’s no reason to pay for such a thing (unfortunately, Zondervan does not let you pick which pages you want from one of their books). Anyone with an English Bible opened to Psalm 119 (as the Hebrew letters are printed in many English Bibles to mark paragraphs of the acrostic poem) and a blank sheet of paper can do that. And in fact, that’s a resource taught on the fist day: English Psalm 119 (in a Bible with Hebrew letters printed in the text). If you ever forget part of the Alef-Bet, Psalm 119 can help. This is also a meaningful way for many confessional students to learn the Alef-Bet.
Some students also used the Alef-Bet Story book and workbook. Its made for kids, but my 40+ year olds loved it and said it was the key to them learning the Alef-Bet so fast. It also is composition, but the composition is accompanied by a silly story for each letter that relates to the letter’s orthography (ex. hey ה has a broken left leg and has to go to the hospital). Not all used this tool. Some were just fine with Psalm 119 and a blank sheet of paper.
I’ve used these alef-bet “refrigerator” magnets for drilling alef-bet recognition (with a Bingo game) and for lexicon readiness (put the stack in order). We have them on our fridge and spell out words for fun. Some of our family kids can pair the alef-bet magnets with alphabet magnets. I also like the small magnet set that EKS Publishing has because the vowels are separate magnets.
I love EKS. They have great stuff. I actually bought the Alef-Bet story from them at SBL one year, though they don’t make it.