Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 1; January 2000

"The Bible as an effective source of teaching materials"

by Debora Pamplona, Universidade Federal do Ceara, Brazil

However, the most important evaluation was how the learners felt and the learning that really took place, which cannot be assessed by a single test. At the end of the course, the learners also answered a questionnaire, where they commented on their impressions about the mini-course. Some of their comments were as follows:

"This method motivated me to learn English."
"Learning from something we already know helps us to learn."
"This way it's easier to learn any language."
"I gained great profit for my spiritual life."
"There was a great interaction with the teacher."
"It fired me with enthusiasm for the Bible."
"It was worth it."

My own evaluation was based on four criteria: the learning, the attendance at class, the learners' involvement, and my own involvement.

As far as the learning was concerned, the tests taken during the mini-course reflect a considerable level of progress, but they fail to measure each learner's actual performance. What I can say is that they definitely learned more than the tests can measure. For example, at each new week a new Bible verse was introduced for memorisation. The spiritual gain was also intangible, but perceptible. One learner commented that the course had given her more enthusiasm for reading the Bible and another one dropped her Portuguese Bible and is still seen around with her English version in the church. Still another learner was very excited because he'd visited a site on the Web about Bible-related topics and had understood a lot of things. These are examples of actual learning taking place.

Class attendance has always been for me a way of knowing how learners are taking advantage of the lessons. If the students are absent too often or if there is a high drop-out rate, this is frequently a sign that there is something about the programme that needs to be reconsidered. Students looking at their watches all too often or reminding the teacher it's time to go home may mean that the lessons are falling apart. In this mini-course, there was no attendance check, but the learners were practically never absent, even though it was during the rainy season and many of them would walk to the church. Often the lessons were longer than planned, but they would not show any sort of discomfort.

The learners got quite involved in the experiment. I heard a number of comments from people who were not participating in the programme, describing the engagement the subjects were showing towards the course. A tremendous experience to illustrate the engagement was in lesson 7. The theme of the unit was descriptions and we were focussing on describing places. In the Bible search section, they filled the board with sentences that described heaven, given the Biblical references. That activity generated such a fruitful discussion about this subject that we ended the lesson praising God with a song in English. Two days after the course was over, there was a party at the church and the group took the initiative to sing the songs we had learned in English and so they did. I believe these reports can be seen as clear elements of involvement.

As for my own involvement, I can say that this was one of the most enjoyable teaching experiences I have ever had. From the arduous, yet pleasurable, design of the lessons, to the teaching itself and the results I got, the whole process was very rewarding to me. The group was very receptive, which motivated me. Strong bonds of friendship grew within us each new day and I know that was a significant element in the success of the experiment. The fact that that was an optimal learning situation helped me through.

Conclusions

Advantages

The advantages of using the Bible for teaching English concern motivation and confidence.

The learners' motivation was an ultimate element in this experiment. According to Brown's (1994) classification of motivation into extrinsic and intrinsic, this experiment contained both types. The former, carried out in anticipation of a reward, such as marks, was present when the learners got a Bible in English for participating in the project, which had been announced beforehand. The latter, the engagement in an activity for its own sake, was also present when the learners showed interest in learning English through the Bible for no other purpose but the learning itself. Taking into account that all of the learners were believers, nothing could be more intrinsically motivating than the Scriptures. It is possible that some of them may have participated in this experiment because of the Bible in English they would get, but it is more likely that it was the intrinsic motivation the fundamental element of their participation.

The other advantage of teaching English to evangelical Christians from the Bible is their confidence. The tasks to be done were related to their background knowledge. For example, in lesson 6, about describing people, the lead-in task was to match David and Goliath to some pre-taught adjectives (strong, young, tall, short). The episode of the frail young shepherd who faces the strong giant of the Philistine army is well-known to every believer. The challenge was in the task itself, and not in the learning about new people or facts. Even with little knowledge of the language, the tasks were not intimidating, because the new material was always related to old, generating confidence in the learners.

Limitations

As with every piece of research, this experiment also has its limitations. I cannot be sure that I or another teacher would have the same results in a different learning-teaching situation. The church where this experiment was conducted is a middle-class Brazilian community that gives a lot of emphasis to the learning of the Bible. Maybe in another Christian group this material wouldn't be appropriate because not much advantage could be taken from the background knowledge. Another limitation was the small number of subjects involved in the experiment. Only nine people may be a rather small sample, not significant enough in order to declare this method absolutely effective. Another shortcoming was the brief period of time the experiment lasted. Only 30 hours didn't intend to prepare the learners to use English fluently. The intention was to test the principle underlying the method and the impact that idea would have on believers. However, I have to admit that a longer experiment would have to be conducted in order to really confirm its validity.

If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas, please write to me at debpamp@hotmail.com. They will be very welcome.

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