How to Teach the Languages—& Actually Help Students Learn

Teaching the biblical languages can be a great joy and a great challenge. Watching new students learn how to read the Bible in its original languages and gain confidence in their new abilities is wonderful. But teaching the same grammatical concepts year after year can feel monotonous.

The challenge is worth rising to, because effective teaching is a skill that can be developed.

The tips that follow draw on years of teaching biblical Hebrew in an academic setting, but most of these suggestions could also apply to less formal contexts.¹

Table of contents

1. Cultivate the right qualities as a teacher
2. Implement communicative learning methods
3. Identify and address reasons students struggle
4. Prepare students to retain the language long-term
Conclusion

1. Cultivate the right qualities as a teacher

Beyond the obvious requirement of knowing the language, effective teachers of the biblical languages also do the following:

Bring passion to the classroom

Students can tell when a teacher loves their topic. And having a teacher who loves biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek can go a long way toward encouraging students as they learn the language. Teachers who find joy in their topic can inspire joy in their students—even struggling students.

Live in the language

Teaching well is aided when teachers spend quality time in the language themselves, outside of class preparation.

This includes reading the language and keeping up with some of the research in the field, or possibly doing research yourself. Teachers who continue to deepen their understanding of the language have more to pull from when teaching others about the language.

And this helps draw us out of the monotony of teaching the same grammatical topics by giving us new ways to think about the topic or new examples to use. Sharing an interesting verse that you just encountered that has an example of the grammatical topic can often be more helpful than examples in the textbook—and it can draw in students to the importance of knowing the languages well.

Know and model your own limits

Let your students stump you with questions. It’s fine to not know an answer, or to delay an answer until after you check a source. Know what you know and what you don’t know. If your students ask a question about an area of study within the language that you are not familiar with, that’s okay.

It is especially important to teach students to know their own limits with the biblical languages. Witnessing their teachers acknowledge their own limits aids in that lesson.

2. Implement communicative learning methods

There are two primary camps within the field of biblical language pedagogy: the grammar–translation camp and the communicative camp. Grammar–translation is the traditional method used in nearly all Bible schools, universities, and seminaries. It’s the approach where students spend most of their time reading the grammar, listening to lectures, and completing workbook assignments.

The communicative approach eschews such methods (at least for initial language learning) and students are immersed in the language by a professor who only (or primarily) talks to them in the new language. This way, they learn how to speak in the language and hear the language before they learn to read and write it.

Research affirms that communicative methodologies provide better learning—and retention—of the language. But, realistically, there are numerous factors (often outside a teacher’s control) that limit the ability to change to a communicative approach. And since most of the conversations about biblical language pedagogy paint a picture of two extremes with no middle ground, usually nothing changes.

However, there are a variety of options between the two extremes. It is not all or nothing. Instead, I advocate for the small step approach.² Each year, find one small change you can make to incorporate a communicative element into your class. I have been adding one small change each year for ten years. And now my classes, though still based on the grammar–translation methodology, include many communicative elements that have greatly benefited my students.

Below is a list of some of the changes I’ve made to my classes.

Require regular reading practice

Teach students to value spending time in the text by requiring them to practice reading a certain amount of time a week (preferably over multiple days). This is practice reading time, not translation or parsing time.

• Provide audio records (especially important in the first semester)
• If possible, have a TA that meets with them who can help them with pronunciation
• Give them texts that use vocabulary words and grammar that they are currently learning

This helps students to become more comfortable and proficient with the language.

Use back-translation exercises

Communicative approaches include students responding to questions by composing and replying in Hebrew. A middle-ground variation of this that can easily be worked into grammar–translation classrooms is to have students back-translate Bible verses from English into Hebrew.

My class textbook does not provide such elements, so I take some of the workbook verses and I provide the English (translated woodenly and with helpful clues about things like when to use the object marker) and have them compose the Hebrew. Then, they check their answers by looking in the workbook.

Incorporate non-biblical stories

Most students learning the biblical languages are largely familiar with the biblical text. This means that there will be times where their translation is more a remembering of what the passage says in English than an actual translation.

Using non-biblical stories is a great way to avoid this problem. Over several years, I composed vocabulary stories that corresponded to the textbook vocabulary lists and the grammar concepts. But easier options would be to integrate non-biblical stories from available resources, such as the stories found in The First Hebrew Primer (EKS, 1992) or Tall Tales Told in Biblical Hebrew (EKS, 1994).

Introduce basic comprehension questions

You do not need to jump fully into the communicative approach to use some Hebrew dialogue in your class. Set a goal to introduce just a few questions/responses into your class. Even simple questions such as: “What did he do?” with guidance on how to use words from the verses to answer the question can help students begin to internalize the language differently.

The book Millim: Words for Conversation in the Biblical Hebrew Classroom (GlossaHouse, 2019), by Paul Overland, is a great resource for finding questions to use.

Limit the use of English writing

My students are strictly forbidden from writing English glosses above the Hebrew words. When students do this, they are not translating but decoding.

Additionally, when we work on the workbook in groups during class, they are not allowed to write out the translation. Instead, they work it out together verbally, then after class they return to the assignment and write out the English translations. This gives them a chance to recall and reinforce what they already figured out about the text while re-reading the Hebrew.

3. Identify and address reasons students struggle

There are numerous reasons why students struggle with learning the biblical languages. In my experience, these are the primary reasons.

Recognize and dismantle mental block

Sometimes students struggle because they heard learning Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek would be difficult—and they believed it. And sometimes they struggle because they don’t believe they are capable. When they believe learning the languages is difficult (either because of the language or because of themselves), they put up a mental block that no amount of creative methodology can conquer.

In these situations, the best approach is to pull the student aside for a private conversation. Help them see the mental block and then directly speak encouragement into the student—and keep doing so. Teach them to celebrate every small win in learning the language instead of focusing on what they haven’t learned yet.

Help students recognize when they’ve taken on too much

Sometimes students struggle because they have too much on their plate—and everyone’s plate is a different size.

I have had numerous conversations with students in this situation. Some conversations include brainstorming ways the student can make adjustments to balance their responsibilities and suggesting different ways for them to study. And other conversations have ended with me teaching the student that sometimes the wisest thing to do is to drop a class and take it at a later point.

Know when to recommend alternatives to the traditional academic model

Teaching the biblical languages in a traditional academic model with school and accreditation requirements places requirements on how much the class must cover and the pace of the class. And some students simply need more time to process than the academic requirements allow. Sometimes these students, unfortunately, have to take the class a second time.

But in other situations, I have been able to recommend students take a class through a different school or venue that will provide the flexibility they need to process, and then transfer the credits in or test out. Just because the biblical languages are often taught within the constraints of the academic model does not mean that is the best way for everyone to learn the languages.

Logos equips students for a lifetime of study in the original languages. Explore solutions.

4. Prepare students to retain the language long-term

In all my training and preparations to teach the biblical languages, no one prepared me for the number of times I would hear impromptu confessionals. Numerous times, upon hearing what I teach, random people have confessed to me that they studied Hebrew years ago in seminary or college but they have now forgotten what they knew.

This story is far too common. This problem needs to be directly addressed with your students—and well before the last day of class.

• Share with your students ways in which you have struggled to make time for the language and the solutions that work for you.
• Share with them how you integrate the languages practically into your life, and share examples of other ways.
• Show them how you use your Bible programs. Show them what biblical texts you use and what resources you keep open. Encourage them to find a setup that works well for them.
• But also exhort students to set up their Bible software to aid retention—not hurt it. Parsing aids, glosses, and translations should be kept out of sight, since our eyes gravitate toward our native language more than we realize.

Finally equip them with a list of recommended resources that can aid them in retention. A few such recommendations are below:

• Glossa House Illustrated Biblical Texts (biblical texts presented in comic-book format)
• Kline, Jonathan. Keep Up Your Biblical Hebrew in Two Minutes a Day, vol 1: 365 Selections for Easy Review. Hendrickson, 2017. (Also available for Aramaic and Greek.)
• Howell, Adam, et al. Hebrew for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving Biblical Hebrew. Baker Academic, 2020. (Also available for Greek.)
• Merkle, Benjamin L., and H. H. Hardy II. Exegetical Gems from Biblical Hebrew and Greek. 2 vols. Baker Academic, 2019.

Share your thoughts

What strategies have you found helpful for teaching Greek or Hebrew? Join us in the Word by Word group to share your thoughts.

Conclusion

Teaching the biblical languages well requires more than simply knowing the language. It requires methodology, attentiveness to struggling students, and a commitment to helping them build genuine confidence in their skills.

Keep your focus on the joy of helping your students read the Bible in its original languages, and the challenges will prove not just manageable but deeply rewarding.

Resources from the article

• Noonan, Jennifer. A Handbook of Second Language Acquisition for Biblical Studies: Insights of Modern Language Instruction for Teaching Biblical Languages. GlossaHouse, 2022.
• Overland, Paul. Millim: Words for Conversation in the Biblical Hebrew Classroom. GlossaHouse, 2019.
• GlossaHouse Illustrated Biblical Texts

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1. Teaching the biblical languages traditionally happens within an academic environment that is constrained by accreditation requirements, other academic responsibilities demanding the teacher’s time, and the expectations of administration. But, there are also an increasing number of people and organizations that are teaching biblical languages outside those constraints.
2. A great resource for considering small steps you can take is Jennifer Noonan, A Handbook of Second Language Acquisition for Biblical Studies: Insights of Modern Language Instruction for Teaching Biblical Languages (GlossaHouse, 2022). She discusses the evidence for the various methodologies and provides suggestions of how one could implement them.