A Chat with Beth & Angela - Hebrew, Greek & YouTube! - Part 1

Alpha with Angela’s 2022 Progress and the YouTube Language-Learning Format

Hey, everyone, and welcome to our conversation. Angela and I are here together. We want to have a chat about how this year 2022 has gone and share a little bit about our experiences teaching Hebrew and Greek, respectively.

So welcome to our conversation. We're just going to have a little informal chat here and thought you guys might enjoy listening in. So, Angela, how are you doing? And where in the world are you right now?

I'm doing well. At the moment, I'm in Australia. I'm visiting family here.

Very cool.

So, yeah, so I'm in a makeshift studio once again.

Yep, I know about those.

It's always fun.

Very cool. Oh, I think my baby is crying in the background. This is a great way to start off our conversation.

Is she going to join us?

I'm bringing you straight into the reality of Bethany's life right now. Yeah, well, cool. I'm in Mexico. So we have a big time difference here, but great to get to chat with you. So what is going on with Alpha with Angela right now?

Where have you come in 2022? What have you seen God do?

Yeah, it's been very exciting. We are now, I think, 37 videos.

Awesome.

Just published Lesson 20 and really looking forward to doing a lot more next year.

Cool.

Yeah, I was particularly excited with Lesson 20. It just felt like things were coming together because I'm following too as a student, for those of you who don't know, improving my Greek. And so it was really exciting to feel my Greek improving after just 20 lessons.

I was like, yes.

Yeah, and that's really useful for me because I get your opinion or your perspective as a student, your experience of the lesson. So that helps me get some direct feedback.

Yeah, so congrats.

Oh, thank you.

Congrats on 20 lessons.

Right. It's not always easy planning. It's different to having a classroom where you get direct feedback and you see how your students are doing compared to you have a lot of students that you have never met.

So we do get feedback sometimes from some of them. And I must say mostly positive and encouraging. And yeah, it's exciting.

Which we super appreciate all of you who leave us nice comments. Thanks. You're the greatest.

Yes, we do. You keep us going.

Right.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Teaching Greek and Hebrew on YouTube

Yeah. Well, maybe that can kind of lead into talking about what are some of the strengths and weaknesses that you're finding with teaching via YouTube because it's a little bit of a new medium, I would say, for language teaching in this way that we're kind of trying to figure out as we go.

So what have you thought about as sort of being some of the drawbacks and then some of the advantages?

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is there was so much more that I needed to learn about technology and so forth other than just Greek. So I think that there's just so much distraction of learning, you know, I've had to learn filming and camera, you know, lighting and sound and editing, video editing and about social media, YouTube and so on.

And a lot of things go wrong. And so that's kind of a disadvantage because I am on my own doing this on my own. So I'm the cameraman and I'm the person in front of the camera. So it can be a bit tricky.

So this last year has been a learning curve. So I'm hoping that next year will go easier, you know, as I get better at it. Yeah, yeah. I bet it will. Right. And also, as I've already mentioned, you know, you don't have that direct interaction with your students.

And using this living method, you want to use all your skills, your language skills. And one thing we can't really encourage our students to do is to speak as well. We have to just trust that they're going to practice what they learned.

Trust that they're motivated enough to do it on their own, but we can't force them.

Right. I don't know. Have you have you learned any other one of the things about YouTube do you think are a disadvantage?

Yeah, I think I think that's the main thing that sticks out to me is just the fact that I do believe that that interactive part or aspect to language learning is really helpful and important. Maybe not strictly necessary for learning how to comprehend the language, but really helpful for really feeling like you have a handle on it.

And that's something like you said, we can't really be assured that our students are doing because they're on the other end of the line, and they're just watching us. So, so I try to encourage them through creating quiz videos and stuff like that to be interacting and be trying to use the language.

But yeah, it's definitely not the same as being in a classroom with somebody and asking them a direct question and then sitting there waiting for them to give you an answer. Right. And we're trying to in our most recent series of videos in the classroom, we're trying to kind of bring that in a little bit to at least model for people how they could do that if they're not familiar with that dynamic.

So hopefully that's like another step towards developing that aspect of language learning is to give them a bit more of an example of what it would look like in a classroom so that they can maybe do that on their own in a class or a small group or study group or something like that.

But yeah, I feel like the lack of that interaction on the part of the student being able to interact and speak is probably the weakest link. But there's so many advantages at the same time that I totally believe in what we're doing and I think it's totally worth it.

I think that having these videos that are engaging and immersive and are repeatable so people can watch them as many times as they want, they can go back and review them any time, you know, there's so many advantages to that as opposed to a classroom that's stuck in time where you can't go back to lesson two, you know, and review something because the class has moved ahead, for example.

So there's so many advantages at the same time that are outweighing those disadvantages.

Right, and you can reach so many more people. In fact, it's kind of limitless, which is probably one of the greatest advantages of this, that it's accessible to anyone in anywhere in the world who has access to the internet or even who doesn't because they can download.

Them and it's free. Doesn't matter the time zone they're in or the age or anything.

And you can watch it whenever you want. I've got one of my students who says that over breakfast her and her children watch Alpha with Angela, which is great.

That's awesome. Definitely for me, one of the most encouraging things is to hear from people who are doing it with their kids and their families and who are really excited to finally have a way to teach their kids the biblical languages.

That always makes me super happy when we get those testimonies. It makes our day every time.

Technical Challenges, Load Shedding, and a New Home

Yeah, I'll just tell them that last time we actually did this chat a couple of months.

Ago.

Oh, the confession comes, the confession.

And it was so discouraging that it's taken me another couple of months to find the time and also the courage to do this again. But every technical problem that could happen,.

Happened.

Oh, boy.

There is so much to think of that people don't realize how much technical things can go on.

Yeah, it really would be a luxury to just be able to focus on the language, right? That would be so nice to not have to think about technical aspects.

Not in this case.

We have to think about all that. But you've been doing an awesome job with the learning curve. I know it's a big learning curve to figure all this out when you don't have experience with it. And I tell Andrew all the time, because he's my cameraman, like, I could not do this without you.

No way. So hats off to you for doing it on your own, because that's a big.

Deal. Yeah, it's been fun on one hand, because I, you know, I love actually do love the technology. It's just, yeah, it's difficult to do it all at once. And you don't know what you're doing, but I'm learning.

And also, I've had other challenges, like, South Africa has been going where I live. I live in South Africa, I'm South African. And we've had a lot of challenges in our country lately. And one of them is we don't have enough electricity.

We've had, we now seem to permanently have, I think they're called rolling blackouts in America, or we called it load shedding, where you only have, you share the electricity. So there's a couple hours a day where you don't have any.

And there's been times where I haven't had electricity for like seven, eight hours a day, into two and a half hour gaps. So that's been a challenge and my Wi Fi challenges and all kinds of things. But now we've got everything working on battery.

So hopefully that helps me there.

Learn all the sneaky workarounds to turn on.

Right. And another thing that happened this year, which was really, really big events in my life was that God provided me with a home, my first home ever. I've been a nomad for many, many, many years.

And yeah, I set up the studio in my sitting room. And yeah, that was quite a challenge having to put everything up and down all the time. And now I have a room dedicated to Alpha with Angela.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. That saves so much time.

Right.

And I have to set everything up again, every time you come. That's great.

Motherhood, Slower Work, and Keeping the Course Going

And you've had some changes in your life this last year too.

We have. Yeah. It's just a few. Yeah, boy. I do not have the time I used to have because I have a baby now. And I mean, she's such a blessing and she brings us so much joy every day. But I'm definitely feeling the difference in not being able to get things, especially now that she's crawling.

I think for the first six, seven months, I could kind of like keep her on my lap and she didn't do very much. And I could even like nurse her and edit videos at the same time, but not anymore. Now she's all over the place, all over the house.

And the little hands are probably very active.

Yeah. Trying to knock over the computer tower and pull on the headphones and you know. So definitely that's been a challenge. And I've had to just come to terms with the fact that I can't put in as many hours as before, which is hard for me because I absolutely love working on videos and editing them and planning these Hebrew lessons.

Like it's just such a joy for me. But, and I always worked in the evenings a lot, but now basically the evenings when she's asleep are my only concentrated times of work.

Wow.

So yeah, during the day, it's just really hard to, to get a lot done. Even switching off and on with Andrew taking care of her. He does a lot to help me out. But even so none of us, neither of us feel like we can get a ton done with her, the prowl all day.

So definitely that's been an adjustment, but we're still seeing like how God is blessing our time and we're still able to get a lot of things out there. So thankful for that.

Yeah, you guys also.

It's just a little bit of a slow down, but not a stop. So we keep pressing on and hopefully different stages of her development will give us more time and we'll just push through and, and see how things change as they go along and keep plugging away slow and steady.

Well she sure is cute and she makes a great prop.

That is true. She makes a fantastic prop. So we figure people will forgive us for, you know, being a little bit slower with the videos because there's such a cute baby in them to make them smile. So for sure, for sure.

Vision for the Course: Quality, Bible Reading, and Mother-Tongue Translators

So what is, what are your, what are your goals for Alpha with Angela going forward here? I'm not going to ask you to give like a goal of videos per, per, for this coming year or anything. Cause I know that that doesn't work for us either.

Like no point in setting a number goal because we just don't know what's going to happen. But, but just maybe share a little bit with us about what your vision is as a whole for the course.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that, that the goal in that aspect is just to get as many videos out as possible. It has, you know, started off with no volunteers and slowly, slowly getting more and more help. That's great.

Which is great. And yeah, it's, it's more of a general goal of just continuing to work and get out as many videos as possible and we want to keep them good quality. And, um, yeah, our goal is for our students to be able to read a reader's edition of a Bible without having to constantly look up words, words in a dictionary.

So that's the end goal. And, uh, yeah. So some of the things that I've learned that we need to keep in focus, um, that our goal is really to reach mother tongue Bible translators. And so some of the decisions, uh, around what we're doing will, will really be determined by that.

Um, but yeah, so, but of course we have a larger audience than that. And so, um, yeah, to, to just try and keep them fun and, uh, engaging and, uh, to try.

And cover the basics of, of Greek grammar. Okay. Like what you would get in a first year grammar basically. Right. Okay. Yeah. It sounds about like, like my goals too, for the Hebrew course. Yeah. Go ahead.

Sorry. Uh, no, finish your sentence then. Well, just, uh, the goal would be to, to keep Hebrew fun the whole way and, uh, get people to the point where they've basically gotten a year of basic Hebrew grammar.

And, um, like you said, that they can read the text without too much difficulty. Like it's always going to be a little bit difficult, but they don't have to look up like every other word. They can feel like they're actually reading fluently, um, and not frustrated by it, not intimidated by it.

And that they feel like they have the basis to, um, jump off of that and go into deeper studies if they want to. And like really own the basics, uh, cause they've heard it so many times and it's really internalized.

So that would be my goal. I think one of my other.

Goals is to try and produce as many stories as possible. Uh, we'll have some simplified biblical stories and also others, uh, to, to have opportunity for, uh, reading proficiency, uh, to improve reading proficiency.

Of course, students need to be able to, uh, need to be reading, uh, the Bible in their original language anyway, even if they don't understand what they're reading, just to, to practice on their own. I think that's a big part of, uh, being able to progress.

Um, yeah, I know that myself being a bit of a perfectionist, it was very hard for me to read and not, and not understand what I'm reading and have to know every single.

Word. Um, but yeah, that can definitely just get used to reading for people when, when you have to understand every single thing and you can't get into the flow of the text. I think that can become a bit of an obstacle, uh, for people.

Yeah. Not to say that you shouldn't try to understand everything, but it depends on what your goals are. If your goal is, um, like exegesis and then yeah, look at every detail. But if your goal is just like, I'm language learning, I need to, um, I'm, I'm exposing myself to the text a lot, you know, then getting into the flow of reading without getting hung up at every point is probably more helpful for that goal.

Right. Yeah. I'm talking specifically about.

Just practicing reading, reading in Greek or Hebrew, especially if you're not used to.

The alphabet. Well, let me ask you, cause you know Hebrew as well. Uh, what do you see.

Differences Between Teaching Greek and Teaching Hebrew

As some of the differences between teaching Greek and teaching Hebrew? Wow. Um, yeah, when I started this, uh, since you've had a lot of headway, um, I thought that, or we thought I could just, uh, follow your videos and, you know, make them Greek, but it doesn't work like that because there are a lot of differences between Hebrew and Greek.

Right. Um, personally I think Greek is harder, but it could be that I'm just cause I'm fluent in modern Hebrew. Perhaps that's why I find Hebrew easier. But, uh, just, I also agree with you that Greek is harder, but that's just me.

So that's two. Right. I think a small example is that, uh, Hebrew has masculine and feminine, and that could be quite difficult to get used to if, uh, from someone whose mother tongue is like English, where we don't have a grammatical gender, but then Greek has three.

And so, um, it's just more, um, statistically more forms of the words that you, you know, you need to learn or you need.

To know. And you need to at least be able to recognize when you see it. Yeah. And then,.

Um, Greek also has five cases. And so then there's more opportunity to have different inflections of the word, or that just means different forms of the same word. For example, in English, we have the definite, definite article, the, and the is the.

Whereas in Greek, I think there's 24 different forms of the. And that's just one of the simplest words. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just going to take a bit longer to lay the foundation than it would for Hebrew, who has a nice little three, three letter root system that you kind of plug into all the, the binyanim, the different, um, yeah, it's like different formulas.

How would.

You explain that to someone? Well, I think stems is what they often say in grammar books,.

The different stems, but yeah. Right. But then they'll also call, um, Greek a forgotten what the terminology is, but that Greek doesn't really have a root. It has a stem. Right.

You don't. Hebrew grammar uses stem a bit differently than the rest of linguistics, unfortunately. It's not, it's the same word, but, uh, used a bit differently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So in, in, in Greek, uh, it's a little bit more difficult to recognize the root. And so when you have different aspects and tenses of the same word, they can sometimes change quite drastically and it's, uh, yeah, it's not as easy for, for, uh, a beginner to recognize.

The word. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So that you're feeling like it's getting a little bit slower to get going with the lessons because there's just so many different forms to cover. Right.

And I also want to approach it in a wise way of how to not overwhelm the students. Um, because yeah, when we really, my goal is to keep it simple. So it might be frustrating for some people that how slow I'm going and, uh, but I'm really taking it slow so that.

I don't lose anybody along the way. And, um, well, even I as a language geek appreciate how slow you're going. So thank you. I just want to affirm your slow pace because it's.

Good. Thank you. Thank you. Um, yeah. And you know, in the, in the future when they're all done, it won't feel slow because those lessons will be there. Exactly. Um, well it still may feel slow to some people, but I think to, to the average person who hasn't learned anything about Greek, it won't feel slow because Greek is, learning a new language is difficult.

And then, you know, learning Greek is an ancient Greek that people don't usually speak as is a really big challenge. Yeah. And I think laying really solid foundations.

With the very basics, uh, really internalizing how this language works at the very basic level is really good investment for going far in the language. Even if you don't feel like you're getting to the advanced stuff very fast, really owning those basic stuff, those basic grammar points is I think a really good investment.

And I'm still experimenting.

A little bit on which directions to go in because I'm hoping to be able to get through some of the difficult stuff without the student even realizing, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Because sometimes if you learn it from a grammar book, it's like, whoa.

Um, but just hearing a language as a child, I mean, a child doesn't go, wow, that's difficult grammar. They just.

Learn to speak. Right. Yeah. I love that. Sometimes I've had people comment on things and they're like, wait, I didn't realize you stuck all that stuff in there. Like for example, the yiktl verb forms, I, I had a bunch of them in past lessons, but I never drew attention to the fact they were just kind of easy to understand based on the context.

And then when I revealed that they were all there later, when I actually taught that verb form, um, one of our volunteers was like, oh my goodness, I didn't even notice those were there and I just understood them.

And I was like, yep, that's what I was going for. Perfect. Yeah.

And that's another, you know, an important, a great example of why people who are going through these videos not to get too stuck on, um, understanding every single word or whatever, just as long as you understand the, what you're talking about and the concept and getting used to listening to, to the Greek and also practice speaking it just helps you internalize it.

And then it's there in your brain some way. Yeah. Trust your brain. Your brain will do its job. Trust your brain. Yeah. And then, yeah. And we do so much repetition that eventually when, when we actually explain it, um, you'll go, oh yeah, I remember that.

Part 2 and the Next Conversation

Hey everyone. So Ansel and I finished up this conversation in part two over on her channel. So, uh, if you're interested, go take a look right here. And, uh, we're going to be talking about lesson planning, vision for the future, workflow, and whether or not the two of us are cut out to be YouTubers.

So don't miss it. Go check it out. And if you're at all interested in learning Greek, give her a subscribe and help us spread the word. Shalom!