On Teaching Biblical Languages

CEFR Level C1-C2

Background

As of April 2026, I have spent two semesters each formally studying biblical Greek and biblical Hebrew. I also have a B.A. in Spanish and have informally dabbled in at least five other languages. Additionally, I am certified to tutor ESL. All this to say, I’ve spent a lot of time both learning languages and thinking about how to teach them. I acknowledge that biblical languages are no longer spoken (like 13th-century English is no longer spoken), but I think there are crossover principles in how adults learn.

TLDR

Teachers of biblical languages would benefit from learning how to teach languages.

Comments and Suggestions

These comments could apply to any type of teaching or any language, but biblical languages are fresh in my mind, so that’s what I’m envisioning as I write. ​

The Underlying Challenge

In all of my experiences formally studying a language, the one constant is that it feels like the class is designed to meet a checklist rather than to create an environment for learning. To paraphrase my orchestration professor, you can water all you want, but the plant will grow when it grows. In other words, you can do all the homework and review and drills you want, but the concepts will click and the words transfer to long-term memory on a timeline that is not always within the student’s control. 

This is the great challenge of group education: How do you move quickly enough that students are neither bored nor left behind? I also wonder if in a college setting, there is some outside force, like accreditation, determining how much material is covered in a class. 

I don’t have enough data on what is causing the problem to suggest a solution. All I know is that there has to be a better way to teach languages than moving through a checklist on a schedule.

Connect NT Culture to Yours

Repetition

Repetition is perhaps the one thing that gets lost in a checklist-style class. A concept is introduced. By the next week, the class has moved on and the teaching and homework is built on the premise that the first concept was fully grasped and engraved in long-term memory in the week devoted to it. The entire semester is a breathless fly by. In the language of Bloom’s Taxonomy, the concept starts with Remember, jumps to Apply or Analyze. The intermediate stages of Understand and sometimes Apply are skipped. The assumption seems to be that if you have Remembered, then you have Understood. That’s not how humans learn, at least not well enough to remember something three months later.  

One solution is to build in repetitive instruction. Start the week by reviewing previous concepts. State them in different words or give a new example of how they function. You won’t be able to cover every concept every week, of course, especially as the semester progresses, but this systematic repetition of ideas can help remind students of that little detail they maybe forgot because their brain was busy focusing on the bigger picture. 

Repetitive instruction can also be built seamlessly into the lecture or tutorial. For example, every time you say a word in the target language, follow it with the definition. Some words will be used so often that you won’t need to define them by the end of the semester. Other words will need constant re-enforcement. 

A similar principle applies to conjugation and parsing. For example, “Talk talk talk Niphal 3ms imperative, notice the he-hireq prefix, talk talk talk.” You don’t have to go into a full explanation each time. Just briefly mention one diagnostic feature.

Define Your Terms

In a perfect world, adult students would enter language classes with a working knowledge of grammar terms like “prefix, suffix, verb root, etc.” In reality, a lot of students don’t know these things. When grammar and linguistic terms are unknown, it can feel like the professor is speaking a different language, even if the words are in English. Of course students get frustrated when they are trying to interpret a new language in order to understand a second language! It’s double the work! Plus, they might feel embarrassed or stupid for not knowing what the professor clearly assumes they already know. 

There are various ways to give students the background vocabulary they need. A glossary sheet and defining the term the first time it comes up are two simple options. In-line parenthetical definitions, like in the Niphal example above, are also helpful. Later in the semester, these definitions might not be needed, but laying the foundation at the beginning can prevent a lot of frustration stemming from confusion. 

In biblical Hebrew, specifically, I noticed that there is a vocabulary that I didn’t see in biblical Greek.

• Numeral and letter abbreviations instead of pronouns (e.g. 3ms instead of “he”).
  
• “Verb stem” to mean a conjugation system (where in modern  languages we might say “verb stem” as an alternate to “verb root,” both meaning the part of the verb that stays the same during conjugation/parsing).
  
• “Parsing” instead of “conjugation.”

The list goes on. There may be rational reasons the vocabulary is different, but part of teaching the language is teaching the linguistic vocabulary used to talk about the language. Teaching means intentionally explaining rather than assuming understanding will be absorbed through context.

Be Specific

Related to defining terms is giving specific answers. In an introductory-level class, explain that words have several possible English equivalents. You can even give examples. Then tell the students which definition you want them to learn. This isn’t teaching to the exam. This is narrowing the focus to what a learner new to the subject can handle. 

It is confusing when a professor says “X, Y, and Z are all possible translations. You don’t need to memorize all of that. Just be aware that you might encounter any of those translations.” The student is left wondering what the difference is between not memorizing a translation and also being aware enough of the alternate translations that they can recognize them. 

The clearer statement is “X, Y, and Z are all possible translations. Be aware that words have different English equivalents. For this level, focus on learning definition X.” You can then add nuance as the course progresses and alternate translations are encountered, but try to limit the amount of alternate translations encountered in an introductory course and certainly don’t expect students to use them in graded work. 

An English example of this is the verb “fly.” Definitions of “to fly” include

• a bird in the air,
  
• a person riding in an airplane,
  
• a person piloting an airplane,
  
• a person moving very quickly (e.g. to run), and
  
• an object moving quickly (e.g. the ball flew at my head).

The verb is also used in idioms (e.g. to fly off the handle).

In an introductory class, I would start with the definition of a bird in the air. In a separate lesson on transportation, I would introduce the airplane context. If students learn those uses, then the others will be more easily understood as they work with the language more.

Those exact suggestions change for intermediate and advanced classes, but the “be specific” principle remains.

Support Small Booksellers

Slow It Down

In a perfect world, the syllabus would be flexible enough that things could be dropped from the end if the class isn’t grasping the concepts as quickly as anticipated. In the real world, that is unlikely to be possible. This is unfortunate and lends to the check-box feeling of classes.

Another aspect of “slow it down” is how quickly the professor recites formulas. To use a Spanish example that may be familiar to readers, instead of “hablohablashablahablamoshablan” say "hablo, hablas, habla, hablamos, hablan.” Give the students’ brains time to follow along, even to predict what comes next. Really think about the experience from the perspective of the learner. The material is second nature to the professor. The students may still be trying to remember the difference between first and second person.

Keep a Learner's Mindset

Students often tell you what they need, but you have to know how to listen. If you typically parse by simply saying what each part is and some of your best students parse by explaining each step and defining terms, maybe this is a process you should be incorporating. If some of your struggling students seem to have given up on telling the difference between Pual and Hophal U-Class and many of the other students make mistakes, maybe you need to take part of a class period to practice identifying the differences. If some of your students are teachers or in a teaching degree program, notice how they explain things when working through translations verbally. You might learn teaching techniques from them. 

You could also directly ask acquaintances who teach modern languages, who are professors in the education department, or who teach K-12 (exact techniques may change for adults, but much of learning theory applies across ages). Be humble enough to know what you don’t know and ask the experts for advice. Higher ed can be siloed, but when it comes to learning how to teach, those barriers need to be crossed. 

There is also value in professors having one skill-based hobby that they struggle with. Pick a hobby that you know you’ll never be more than average at. This helps keep the perspective of a new learner fresh in the professor’s mind. Ideally, this skill is something that is learned and practiced with other people. This will remind the professor of the fear that comes when you know that others will witness you failing. Thoughtfully applied, these experiences can help you become a better teacher.

Conclusion

Languages can be challenging to learn. This doesn’t mean that a professor should shrug and carry on because there’s nothing to do to change the fact that a language is hard. There are teaching techniques and mindsets that can reduce the friction of learning something challenging. I’ve included only a few here. 

College professors should know how to do research. Go research how to teach. Attend CE for K-12 teachers or teachers of modern languages. Get certified to tutor ESL, even if you never plan to tutor learners of English as a second language. Experiment and adapt. Give conference presentations and write papers on your experiences. Just because a subject is classified as hard, that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. If you’re going to be a teaching professor, then make it your mission to learn how to teach that subject, not just be an expert in it.

Buy Me a Coffee