Reading the Bible in a Foreign Language

The first time I heard about the relationship between learning a foreign language and reading the Bible was during one of my linguistics classes. The professor stated: "I have learned several foreign languages just by reading the Bible, [and] although I practise not consider myself a Christian believer, I noticed the constructive issue of learning through an extensive, varied, and valuable book."ⁱ Equally a 19-year-old Adventist pupil in my showtime year at a public university, I was deeply afflicted by the words of this professor. From that moment, I decided that when I became a professor, I would use the Bible every bit a basic manual to teach a foreign language.

I idea that I was alone in using the Bible as a primary resources for teaching until I found Humberto Rasi'due south Christ in the Classroom series, which he began in 1993. ^two These books are a compilation of manufactures and essays about the integration of faith in teaching and learning written by Adventist college professors. Rasi'southward philosophy is stated as follows:

"The integration of faith and values with teaching and learning is a deliberate and systematic procedure of approaching the entire educational enterprise—both curricular and co-curricular—from a Christian perspective. In a Seventh-day Adventist setting, its aim is to ensure that, by the fourth dimension students consummate their studies, they volition take freely internalized beliefs and values and a view of knowledge, life, and destiny that is Bible-based, Christ-centered, service-oriented, and kingdom-directed." ³

In reviewing these wonderful resource for Christian teachers, I noticed that while the manufactures and practical examples came from a variety of subject areas, only one related to English-as-a-second-language teaching, and none related to educational activity the Spanish linguistic communication. This motivated me to fill this religion-didactics gap through using the Bible as a main resources in my English and Spanish classes, and creating materials that would assistance instructors in the integration of faith in educational activity and learning.

Using the Bible as a Text Base of operations

In 1998, I was hired to teach at an Adventist educational institution in Sagunto, Spain. During the side by side five years, I taught English as a foreign language to the senior high school students. While I felt an enormous responsibleness to fix these students for their Selectividad (Selectivity) examinations, a crucial examination at the end of the form that would decide their ability to enter academy and pursue desired careers, I also relished the opportunity to integrate faith with learning. This test would select from among all the loftier school students in Spain only those who were really prepared to proceed with their education.

The examiners who created this exam used random magazines, newspapers, and media news to construction comprehension activities. I took the risk of integrating texts from a modern version of the Bible into my lesson plans for the English class.^iv I advised my students to accept the challenge to learn with this method, even though a few of them were non Adventists. The Selectivity test consisted of a concluding written examination on writing, reading, and grammer, so I created a few activities by using the Bible as the text base. Because the Scriptures contain a multifariousness of vocabulary words, topics, and writing styles, I anticipated that students would obtain good linguistic results at the end of the course. Furthermore, the students, along with the professor, would too be exposed to many educational and spiritual values, besides as the integration of faith and learning. (See examples in Tables 1-3.)

Surprisingly, the results were much better than expected. During the 5 sequent years that I prepared students for the Selectivity examination with this method, 100 percent of the students passed and were able to enter the universities of their choice. Furthermore, my students obtained the highest average scores on the test in all the subjects taken by students from our school.

Reading Frank McCourt'southward book, El Profesor, ushered in a new phase in my life every bit a teacher and served as a source of inspiration equally I searched for tools and methods to help me integrate faith with learning in my Spanish and English classes. Based on McCourt'due south personal experiences every bit a professor of Irish descent teaching at the McKee Plant in New York City, the book describes the passion and struggle of a teacher yearning to reach his students. I was impressed by the words he shared almost his commencement form: "Ya llegan. Y yo no estoy preparado. ¿Cómo iba a estarlo? Soy un profesor nuevo, y estoy aprendiendo con la práctica." ["They are coming. And I am not ready. How would I be? I am a new professor, and I am learning with practice."]^five

McCourt used unconventional methods to teach English language and literature in order to awaken a higher interest among his young students. He listened to their inquiries, immersed himself in their communities, tried to understand the realities of their lives, and planned their learning experiences based on their routines and realities outside the classroom. He set out to have an touch on their lives and used several creative approaches to do so. Ane such method was to engage his students using the Bible. For example, he asked them to write an apology letter from Adam and Eve to God for having been ill-behaved and falling into sin. Many of his students were familiar with the Bible since they attended Christian churches and Bible schools.

My interest grew as I saw others using the Bible to help students build of import skills. Then, when I was completing my doctoral studies, one of my professors encouraged me to pursue this topic and proposed that I read the piece of work of Paulo Freire. Freire states that students need to exist "actors, rather than spectators, that they may have a voice, instead of just saying the give-and-take, that they may take the opportunity to create and recreate, and transform the world."⁶

In other words, students should have the opportunity to be heard and to participate in choosing the content of their learning. We, as professors, should also consider this an opportunity to nowadays learning every bit a vertical organization, not just a horizontal one. Integrating faith and the Bible engages students in thinking about their relationship with God within the context of the area of study. Adventist schools and colleges take an splendid opportunity to embrace the Bible as an essential manual that can help students learn linguistic and spiritual content. To further this goal, I would like to present a practical section describing how I have been integrating Adventist educative values, faith, and the Bible in my Castilian-linguistic communication didactics at the higher level.

Creation of Materials

As a result of almost 20 years of feel education a foreign linguistic communication, x years of research, and xv years working on activities that include Bible usage, I decided to create a series of professional Spanish manuals, post-obit the American Council on the Educational activity of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) guidelines, including the universal educative values,^vii and integrating the Bible and religion in learning and pedagogy in both the implicit and explicit curriculum, in the pedagogy of college-level Spanish.⁸ These manuals have been published and are available for use in Christian colleges. (Meet Box one.)

Pregnant of IFELE

This project has been named IFELE (Integración de la Fe en la Enseñanza de la Lengua Española―Integration of Faith in Teaching the Spanish Language). IFELE provides materials that integrate organized religion and the Bible and can exist used in the teaching and learning of Spanish in Christian classrooms. Smith and Carvill convey that the souvenir of the stranger consists of faith, hospitality, and strange-language learning, and that all the languages in the world deserve to exist considered in the same way.⁹ Currently, few studies have looked at the integration of faith and the Bible in the teaching of English, or other strange languages, equally a second language. This is also the case with Spanish, although I take establish a few individual articles and activities.¹⁰ Equally a issue, I have been working on the IFELE project during my almost 20 years of experience educational activity a foreign linguistic communication. (See Examples 1 and two.)

During this time, I learned that the acquisition of a second linguistic communication is a very complex process; and thus, any element that we equally linguists and teachers can find to facilitate it will assistance to reduce learner anxiety, as well equally motivate students to accelerate the four principal steps through which learners usually progress in learning a new language: euphoria, frustration, discouragement, and satisfaction.¹¹

Lanauze and Snowfall support the idea that "unfamiliar content may be as bang-up an interference in comprehension every bit is unfamiliar form." ¹² This is why the ACTFL Guidelines are so relevant. Below are a few characteristics this organization recommends that a teacher take into account when creating assignments, particularly at the beginning and intermediate levels:

• Use a express number of letters, symbols, or signs; identify high-frequency words and/or sentences strongly supported by the context (reading).
• Create short, connected, not-circuitous texts with personal, social, and familiar topics (reading).
• Ask students to copy or transcribe familiar words and sentences (writing).
• Require learners to produce by memory only a limited number of isolated words or familiar sentences (writing).
• Ask students to draw personal preferences, daily routines, common events, and other personal topics (writing).
• Have students exchange greetings and identify and name a number of familiar objects in the firsthand environment, within a familiar framework (speaking).
• Ask students to talk virtually their personal interests and preferences related to self, family unit, home, and daily activities (speaking).
• Assist students recognize isolated words or high-frequency sentences within a context (listening).
• Remember that comprehension is about often accurate with highly familiar and predictable topics (listening).
• Use approaches that aid students act with greater sensation of cocky, of other cultures, and their relationships to those cultures, in a diversity of settings (community).
• Structure assignments so that students outset learning from their ain customs of practise (comfort zone), in order to participate more than fully in global community and worldwide marketplace (community).¹³

Based on the official aforementioned ACTFL guidelines, ane can see the connection to the IFELE project, which is congenital on familiarity, faith-integrative principles, and community concepts.

Use of Familiar Content

Anderson and Pearson indicated that "comprehension, by definition, is the process of relating new or incoming data already stored in memory. Readers make connections between the new information on the printed page and their existing knowledge."¹⁴ Langer and Applebee add that "one does not merely larn and write most particular things in item means." ¹⁵ Instead, i tin can learn from a diverseness of sources, and the information is more meaningful when those sources are familiar.

Anne Ediger¹⁶ also defended the familiar aspect because from her personal perspective, it would be much easier to learn moving from the known or familiar to the unknown or unfamiliar content. She mentioned three fundamental elements: text (familiar content), reader (group identity), and context (linguistic features). Finally, as mentioned above, the ACTFL guidelines recognize key words, cognates, and contextualized phrases and sentences with predictable or familiar data, especially for beginning learners of a strange linguistic communication. This organization explores the need to motivate the teachers and learners to produce texts related to their daily routines through familiar topics and contents.

Sandra Savignon¹⁷ named the cardinal elements that appropriate 21st-century instruction should deliver:

1. Educational activity should exist "new" or "innovative," in the sense of transforming the learners into active participants who are able to interpret, express, and negotiate their own meanings.
2. The teacher should seek to achieve residuum between the sociocultural context, the learning strategies, the discourse cohesion, and the less-pop grammar aspect of the class.

Employ of the Bible in English language Language and Literature Classes

Throughout history, many prejudices have existed against the employ of the Bible equally a text to teach a foreign linguistic communication because of the relationship between this book and some prohibited terms in the context of secular didactics, such every bit religion, faith, moral values or, in a critical sense, a certain fundamentalism by some teachers who have coercively proselytized in their classrooms. However, Astin, Astin, and Lindholm¹⁸ have suggested that intendance for the spiritual lives of students tin improve their emotional state and, every bit a issue, their bookish performance besides. Elaine Horwitz^nineteen observed that class realities which contradict students' expectations about learning may discourage them and, as a consequence, interfere with the achievement of their desired objectives. Nunan argued that "teachers should find out what their students recall and feel about what they desire to acquire and how they want to learn."²⁰

Finally, a few secular authors take defended the employ of the Bible in linguistic communication and literature classes. Marie Wachlin²¹ commended the Bible as a textbook to teach a language since it has inspired other disciplines, such as music, verse, and fine art, with a variety of forms and literary styles. Wachlin encouraged linguists, professors, students, administrators, and investigators to use the Bible more than frequently in American schools, peculiarly in colleges and universities. Notwithstanding, the Bible must exist taught in a tolerant, flexible, responsible, objective, and critical way. Professors in Christian schools can openly utilise the Bible to help students develop positive grapheme traits and a relationship with God, as well as to achieve academic goals.

Morris and Smith²² found a direct relationship between educatee retention at Syracuse University and the integration of the Bible every bit literature for English-language learning. Edward Bonard,²³ the pioneer of a organized religion motion that based its teaching method of English as a 2nd linguistic communication on using the Bible as a literary text for conversational skill, developed a program titled "Let's Start to Speak" (Empecemos a hablar) in Nashville, Tennessee. The programme has helped more than than 3,000 immigrants from some 300 countries. Bonard sought to found a comparative analysis of the results betwixt familiar and unfamiliar texts. He found that the use of familiar texts from the Bible showed ameliorate results than the texts taken from other books.

Use of the Bible in Spanish Language and Literature Classes

Although I have reviewed numerous and diverse studies on the utilise of the Bible to teach Castilian as a second linguistic communication, I accept yet to find i dealing with the effect of Bible texts on teaching and learning. This therefore needs farther report by Christian Castilian-language professors. They, along with the administrators, investigators, and linguists, all have the responsibility to study how to evangelize Spanish as a foreign linguistic communication in ways that increase acquisition of a language that continues to be in high need.

Communities Integrating Bible and Religion

Benedict Anderson spoke about the concept of nationality as something that should be "natural, in the sense that it contains something that is unchosen (much like gender, peel color, and parentage)."²⁴ While this may be so, in that location are many for whom nationality is a choice, and the result is a community of practice in which they willingly participate. Attractive Norton²⁵ emphasized the importance of motivating a specific community of language learners to participate in the practices that characterize the new communities, that they may feel the need to integrate their own realities into their learning. In his investigation, Norton included the negative experiences of two students, Katarina and Felicia, who became discouraged and abased their English language classes considering they didn't feel accepted as active participants in the new customs. Lave and Wenger stated that "learning as an increasing participation in communities of do concerns the whole person interim in the world." ²⁶ Eda Derhem²⁷ observed that linguists estimate that well-nigh 80 percent of the lx,000 existing languages today will eventually disappear, and insisted on the importance of respecting the identities of communities of linguistic practice by avoiding separation of linguistic communication from culture and society.

Smith and Carvill ended that "If, therefore, I do not empathise the pregnant of what I am saying, I will be a foreigner for the speaker, and she/he will be a foreigner for me."²⁸ Goulah advocated for transformative learning "in interlocking structures of race, class, gender, and power in the context of the standards-based world linguistic communication and culture learning . . . to transform learners' tendencies, attitudes, and actions contributing to them. .  . . While critical literacy is necessary, transformative learning is desirable." ²⁹

Rito Baring³⁰ explained why the students in his Christian community in the Philippines read the Bible every bit an act of faith. Even though the students were Generation 10 learners, who read very picayune in general and the Bible even less, he discovered that they could be motivated to read and learn better when they read the Bible as part of their learning experience.

Within a customs of language learners, the students tin can transcend the linguistic, developing their own personal relationship with God, learning about life outside the classroom, practicing disquisitional thinking, discerning between the skillful and the bad, the convenient and inconvenient. Therefore, Bible content cannot exist neutral, simply can be used respectfully with consideration of the community of practice.

Morris, Brook, and Smith indicated that dissimilar secular or public institutions, Christian schools emphasize the importance of students developing wholistically. Spiritual growth is at the core of the overall curriculum, and integrating faith with learning, both in the classroom and in school-wide activities, will help students develop and embrace a Christian worldview. In their study, "when a student reported existence spiritually integrated, [he or she was] more than probable to persist."³¹

Last Thoughts

In 2006, I began teaching Castilian as a second language at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, U.South.A. The interest in Spanish-language learning and the number of students enrolling in Spanish classes has increased from about 30 to approximately 140 students per semester between 2006 and 2017. More than 90 percent of Oakwood's pupil population are Christians, so most are familiar with Bible content. During the fall and spring 2010-2011 semester courses, the university distributed a survey in order to determine how students perceived their spiritual growth on campus. Approximately 800 students completed the 52-detail LifeCore©2011 survey. In addition, approximately 852 students were interviewed.³²

Co-ordinate to Lifecore©2011, 67 per centum of the students surveyed found the religious activities interesting, 50 per centum said they were significant, and 43 percent said they were relevant. In relation to student involvement in the community, 46 per centum of the students were willing to help others understand the Bible. With regard to personal spiritual activities, 73 percent of respondents said they read the Bible frequently, compared to four per centum of the participants in Barna Inquiry Grouping's national survey taken in 2003,³³ which studied ii,033 adults in the United states of america. Finally, 32 pct of the Oakwood students said that Bible reading had a significant touch on their noesis and written report of the Bible, still much higher than the national average. This could exist because the Bible is integrated throughout the curriculum, not taught simply in religion courses.

In their responses to the Lifecore©2011 survey, students enrolled in Spanish courses said that integration of the Bible in their courses helped increase their interest and agreement:

• "Yes, familiar texts helped me correlate and empathize Spanish a lot amend";
• "Yes, it was really helpful. I was able to identify stories and it was easier to identify words, as I associated it with Bible story";
• "Yeah, relating Castilian with texts that I already knew helped me remember it easier";
• "Aye, information technology's a great education tool. I discover it easier learning something in Spanish [that] I am familiar with rather than a random poem or dialogue";
• "Yes, I took two years Spanish in [a] Christian school only never learned with Bible texts. I look forwards beingness placed in [a] grouping to larn using familiar texts."

To summarize, I found a meaning number of previous studies that demonstrated an impact equally the event of using the Bible in English-language learning. However, it was nigh impossible to discover like findings almost the impact of the Bible on Spanish-language learning. This, and then, became the rationale for my creating materials to teach Spanish as a second language at the college level. Scripture says: "For God has not given the states a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, beloved, and self-discipline. So never exist ashamed to tell others about our Lord" (two Timothy 1:vii, 8, NLT).³⁴ Equally Christian teachers, each of us has a responsibility to keep to utilize the Bible in our courses and to create materials that integrate faith in pedagogy within Christian education.

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This article has been peer reviewed.

Francisco Burgos

Francisco Burgos, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Strange Languages at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, The statesA. Dr. Burgos earned his PhD in Romance Languages (Castilian and English), with an emphasis in Linguistics, Literature, and Teaching Methodology from t he University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He too holds an MA in Anglo-Saxon Philology and Hispanic Studies, and an MEd in Full general Education from Universidad Adventista del Plata, Argentine republic. In addition to pedagogy for several years at Centro Escolar Adventista de Sagunto, Kingdom of spain, he has served equally the Adventist Colleges Abroad Coordinator for the Foreign Languages Section at Oakwood University for 11 years. He as well actively supports students in the foreign-languages program by serving as founder and sponsor of several Castilian clubs and raising coin for scholarships. He has authored several textbooks for elementary and intermediate Castilian , and presented his research nationally and internationally.

Recommended citation:

Francisco Burgos, "​Using the Bible to Teach a Foreign Language," Periodical of Adventist Educational activity 79:4 (July–September, 2017). Bachelor at https://jae.adventist.org/en/2017.4.half dozen.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. This argument was made by Dr. Antonio Briz, my linguistics professor during the 1990s.
2. Humberto Rasi, Christ in the Classroom: Adventist Approaches to the Integration of Faith and Learning (Silver Spring, Doc.: Institute for Christian Teaching, 1993): http://ict.aiias.edu/ifl_definition.html.
3. Ibid.
4. For my classes, I use the N ew Living Translation version in Spanish, equally it is a fresh paraphrase and more contemporary version suitable for teenagers and young adults, and at the same time very shut to the original. K. Due north. Taylor, La Santa Biblia, Nueva Traducción Viviente (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2010).
5. Frank McCourt, El Profesor (Madrid: MAEVA, 2006), 19.
6. Paulo Freire, Pedagogía del oprimido (Montevideo: Tierra Nueva, 1970), thirty.
7. Universal values are respect for others, responsibleness, solidarity, tolerance, dialogue, non-violence, fellowship, self-esteem, creativity, respect for nature, defence of the environment, respect for diversity, respect and encouragement of the traditions of each private culture. For more information, see Proyecto Educativo de Centro (2012), page 21: http://www.educando.edu.exercise/articulos/directivo/el-proyecto-educativo-de-centro-pec/.
8. The IFELE textbooks tin be used to teach both high schoolhouse and higher/university level students.
9. David I. Smith and Barbara Carvill, The Gift of the Stranger: Faith, Hospitality, and Strange Linguistic communication Learning (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000), 82.
10. Rasi, Christ in the Classroom.
11. University of Northern Iowa Study Away Eye: http://studyabroad.uni.edu/index.cfm.
12. Milagros Lanauze and Catherine Snowfall, "The Relation Between First and 2nd Language Writing Skills," Linguistics in Instruction 1:four (Winter 1989): 25, 323-339.
13. ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (Hastings-on-Hudson, Northward.Y.: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 1983).
14. Richard C. Anderson and P. David Pearson, "A Schema-Theoretic View of Basic Processes in Reading Comprehension," in Handbook of Reading Inquiry, P. D. Pearson, ed. (New York: Longman, 1984), 255, 255-292.
15. Judith A. Langer and Arthur Due north. Applebee, "Reading & Writing Instruction: Toward a Theory of Instruction and Learning," Review of Research in Educational activity thirteen:1 (Jan 1986): 173, 171-194.
16. Anne Ediger, "Teaching Children Literacy Skills in a Second Language," in Instruction English every bit a Second or Foreign Linguistic communication, Marianne Celce-Murcia, Donna M. Brinton, and Margurite Ann Snowfall, eds. (Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001), 153-169.
17. Sandra J. Savignon, "Communicative Language Teaching for the Twenty-Beginning Century," in ibid., thirteen-27.
18. Alexander Due west. Astin, Helen Southward. Astin, and Jennifer A. Lindholm, Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students' Inner Lives (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 2010).
19. Elaine One thousand. Horwitz, "The Beliefs Nearly Linguistic communication Learning of Beginning University Strange Language Students," The Modern Language Journal 72:iii (Autumn 1988): 283-294.
20. David Nunan, "From Learning-centeredness to Learner-centeredness," Applied Linguistic communication Learning 4:ane-2 (1993): 4, 1-xviii.
21. Marie Goughnour Wachlin, "The Identify of Bible Literature in Public High School English language Classes," Research in the Didactics of English 31:1 (February 1997): 7-49.
22. Jason M. Morris, Richard Beck, and Albert B. Smith, "Examining Educatee/Establishment Fit at a Christian University: The Office of Spiritual Integration," Journal of Didactics & Christian Conventionalities 8:two (September 2004): 87-100.
23. See Let's Commencement to Speak! by Edward Bonard (2017): http://www.lst.org/practice.
24. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006).
25. Bonny Norton, "Non-participation, Imagined Communities, and the Language Classroom," in Learner Contributions to Linguistic communication Learning: New Directions in Research, Michael P. Breen, ed. (New York: Pearson Education Limited, 2001): 159-171.
26. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 49.
27. East. Derhem, "Protecting EMLs: Sociolinguistic Perspectives―Introduction," International Periodical on Multicultural Societies 4:2 (2002): 5-16.
28. Smith and Carvill, The Souvenir of the Stranger, 16.
29. Jason Goulah, "Ecospirituality in Public Foreign Linguistic communication Education: A Critical Discourse Analysis of a Transformative World Language Learning Approach," Critical Inquiry in Language Studies eight:1 (March 2011): 27-52.
30. Rito Baring, "Agreement Student Attitudes Toward Bible Reading: A Philippine Experience," The Religious Education Association 103:2 (March 2008): 162-178.
31. Morris et al., "Examining Student/Establishment Fit at a Christian University," 98, 99.
32. Oakwood University Kinesthesia Development Committee, "LifeCore© 2011 Study to Faculty and Staff" (August 2011). Data shared with the permission of the university's Institutional Research Board.
33. Ibid.
34. Scripture quotation is taken from theHoly Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission ofTyndale Firm Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All Rights Reserved.

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Source: https://jae.adventist.org/2017.4.6

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