Hebrew Language Education

  Briefing Paper: Purposes and Practices of Israel/Hebrew Education

  Research Questions Resource: Hebrew Language Education: Questions from Convenings and Conversations

  Blogcast: Teaching and Learning Hebrew - Let's Talk About It

  Thinking Differently About Hebrew: A Resource for Practitioners

In March 2015, CASJE presented at the North American Jewish Day School Conference. The conversation was built on the Blogcast. The above resource, which summarized the Blogcast, was shared with the conference session attendees.
 

Home and Family Matters: Parental use of the heritage language at home encourages students’ language maintenance; Feuer recommends studying the ways Hebrew is used in the home and the attitudes toward Hebrew that children observe or mimic.

School and Educational Influences: School structure and learning goals, whether explicit or not, are important in shaping students’ educational experiences.

Other External Influences: Strong relationships with relatives in the country of origin positively affected willingness to use and maintain the heritage language. Similarly, return trips to the country of origin increased the likelihood that students would use the language, gain advanced proficiency and feel positively toward it.

Intergroup Relations and Motivation: How a learner feels about being a part of “target language” community may determine her or his language learning success. Moreover, successful second language learning is not necessarily about being internally motivated, but about a person’s access (or lack thereof) to social networks in which they can use the language. For learners, investment in the target language is also an investment in their identity, which constantly changes over time and across contexts.

If American Jews are learning modern Hebrew to identify and connect with the target language group (i.e., Israelis), further research could explore 1) how different Hebrew language learning conditions facilitate or hinder this connection? 2) Is Hebrew the only or best way to facilitate this connection? 3) In what ways do some members of Israeli communities accept or marginalize non-native Hebrew language use or facilitate Americans’ attempts to learn and use Modern Hebrew?

Context and Culture: Foreign/second language novices are socialized through language to become familiar with their community’s ways of thinking, feeling, and acting in the world. Through language they learn about a community’s values, beliefs, and ideologies, a process called “second language socialization.”

This research shows that while some learners may achieve “success,” others may experience ambivalence, resistance to or rejection of the target language culture or community. Thus, future research might explore the relationship between language learning and the process of identifying as a member of a particular community: In what ways are Hebrew language learners—whether learning through social media, preschools, day and sleepaway camps—socialized to think about what it means to become a “speaker of [Jewish] culture”? In what way does the teaching of Hebrew as a second language socialize American youth into particular ways of thinking about themselves as Jews?

Language Repertoires and Performance: Language teachers and learners are engaged in a performance with an audience of spectators in the classroom and with a broader global audience that may not be physically present, but who also either reject or affirm the learners’ new knowledge. One study examines how Israeli shlichim families in the United States learn to recognize and mock Americans’ non-Israeli pronunciations of Hebrew, thereby allowing Israelis to reinforce and blur the boundaries between Israeli and American Jews. By doing so, the shlichim families can claim Israeli authenticity.

When assessing Hebrew reading comprehension and writing, account for Hebrew being a “homographic” language, meaning that because words are largely based on three-letter roots, groups of words look very similar to each other. Educators should thus pay attention to the use of vowels in the early stages of reading to help with the identification of isolated words and texts. Research shows that for learners of Arabic, clear (i.e., pointed) vowels can be beneficial even for skilled readers.

Hebrew language educators should look for areas where reading accuracy may not correlate well with reading comprehension. Because of Hebrew’s root system, a learner may comprehend a word or text, while not knowing how to pronounce it correctly due to the possible ambiguity or lack of vowels being used. Or, in the opposite scenario, a very small percentage of readers — so-called “word callers” — may be able to read a written text quite fluently but not understand it at a similar level.

The learners’ first language—English for most Americans—can influence their ability to attain proficiency in their second language. English’s vastly different characteristics from Hebrew, including direction, use of vowels, and makeup of words, poses challenges. For example, when a learner’s first language is read left-to-right, that individual will have spatial biases toward the left side of space and thus generally follow a left-to-right direction in how they perceive and produce. Native readers of a RTL language will have a stronger tendency to scan and process information in a right-to-left direction.

• The number of students learning Hebrew in American public schools is growing. Most of the growth is in Hebrew charter schools; however, traditional public high school programs also report steady and increasing enrollments. One of the largest impediments to increasing high school enrollments is the lack of Hebrew class options in middle schools.
• Proficiency in Hebrew varies tremendously among students at the high school level. The same class may have students who have little to no ability to decode as well as native speakers who speak and read fluently. This diversity requires teacher to engage in extreme versions of differential teaching.
• High school teachers report that the Hebrew class represents a different type of space than other foreign/world language classrooms. It is a place where Jewish students can be together, and it is perceived as a less stressful and more comfortable subject than other academic courses.
• Finding qualified and (in the case of traditional and some charter schools) state certified teachers is a major problem. Additionally, in charter schools, finding teachers who are committed to staying in a school long-term is an issue. Veteran teachers, who made up the largest group interviewed in this study, are concerned about being able to retire and/or leaving their programs without a teacher because it would essentially end the program.
• The Hebrew class does more than cover the Hebrew language. Hebrew teachers also teach (mostly in English) about the Holocaust and Israel. While there is no common Israel curriculum, almost all of the teachers reported not covering the geopolitical realities of the Middle East and refraining from discussing politics. Topics usually focus on food, geography, types of communities, cities, and “start-up nation” information.
• Most high school teachers develop their own curriculum. Materials include a combination of teacher-created worksheets and books used in day schools and in ulpan programs designed for immigrants in Israel. There is no published material specifically designed for Hebrew teaching in public schools.
• Charter schools report teaching Hebrew for one period and integrating Hebrew throughout other classes, but this integration is not structured or assessed. Middle and high school students at traditional public schools are exposed to Hebrew learning only during the Hebrew period. There are no fully immersive programs in which children are taught in Hebrew in all content areas, nor are there any dual language (two-way immersion) programs in which half the students are Hebrew-only speakers and the other half are English-speaking.
• Some middle and high schools offer Israel and/or Hebrew clubs. These clubs are not always taught by the Hebrew teacher, and the content of these clubs is detached from the Hebrew class curriculum. Jewish students attend after-school programs run by local Jewish Community Centers (JCCs), Chabad, and other Jewish organizations, both on campus and in other locations.
• High school programs use various formative and summative assessment methods. Programs may use the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) guidelines, offer classes or tracks in International Baccalaureate (IB) Hebrew, or employ state-run or private proficiency testing programs (for example, Avant STAMP).
• Schools have divergent and overlapping goals for teaching Hebrew. Some goals are ideological and symbolic, such as strengthening a connection to Israel and cultivating students who can become adults who positively represent Israel. Other goals are pragmatic, such as offering students a credential on their high school transcripts, or cultural, such as increasing intercultural competence. Some high school teachers position their programs as a form of Jewish education within the public school setting so that Jewish children can have opportunities to study together. In Hebrew charter schools, teachers recognize that families have chosen to enroll their children to have access to academically rigorous and safer schools. This divergence means that teachers, administrators, and students do not always share the same goals. It also makes it difficult to assess and evaluate the learning outcomes of Hebrew programs.

• Hebrew Learning in American Public Schools: Growing the Teacher Pipeline to Build the Field
• Hebrew Learning in American Public Schools: An Under-the-Radar Educational Experience and Resource

• Survey on Hebrew Education: School Directors

• Survey on Hebrew Educators: Teachers

• Survey on Hebrew Education: Parents

• Survey on Hebrew Education: Clergy

• Survey on Hebrew Education: Students

• Most schools emphasize decoding (sounding out letters to form words) and recitation of Liturgical and Biblical Hebrew without comprehension for the purpose of ritual participation. Many schools also incorporate some Modern Hebrew, but only a small percentage teach Modern Hebrew conversation through immersive teaching techniques.
• In addition, most schools practice Hebrew infusion—the incorporation of Hebrew words, songs, and signs into the primarily English environment. The (unstated) goal of infusion is to foster a metalinguistic community of Jews who value Hebrew. This is reflected in the high importance of affective goals—such as associating Hebrew with Jewishness and feeling personally connected to Hebrew—for all constituencies, especially school directors.
• A major challenge in Hebrew education is the small number of “contact hours” that most schools have with their students. On average, schools spend 3.9 hours per week with 6th graders, including 1.7 hours on Hebrew. Multiple stakeholders consider this limited time the most significant challenge. Even schools on the high end of contact hours wish they had more time.
• School directors, clergy, teachers, parents, and students have diverse rationales and goals for Hebrew education, which at times can create tensions. School directors believe parents are only or primarily interested in bar/bat mitzvah preparation. This is true for many parents, but some parents also have other goals for their children, including gaining conversational Hebrew skills. Parents and students value Hebrew for reasons besides bar/bat mitzvah more than school directors and clergy expect them to.
• School directors express less interest in some Modern Hebrew-related goals than do parents and other constituents. Perhaps this reflects school directors’ more realistic sense of what is possible with limited contact hours.
• Students generally express positive feelings about their school and learning Hebrew. Their responses suggest that schools are generally succeeding in affective goals more than school directors believe.
• School directors are more likely to feel they are accomplishing goals that are important to them when certain factors are present: when they have been in their positions longer, when they have realistic goals based on the contact hours they have, when their schools do much of their Hebrew learning in small groups, and when their schools assign a small amount of homework.
• Many schools have trouble finding teachers with sufficient Hebrew knowledge, as well as teachers with adequate pedagogical skills for teaching Hebrew.
• Schools are making changes in opposite directions. Some schools are adding more Modern Hebrew instruction; others are shifting their focus solely to Textual Hebrew.
• Hebrew Through Movement and other elements of #OnwardHebrew have become popular. Many school directors consider these approaches successful.
• Online Hebrew learning is gaining some traction. Online options include gamified activities and one-on-one Skype/FaceTime tutoring sessions (this study was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). School directors generally feel that these individualized and technologically based approaches are effective.
• Many school directors and teachers are not aware of the resources for Hebrew education in part-time Jewish schools.

• Initiate a comprehensive process of collaborative visioning regarding rationales, goals, and practices involving teachers, clergy, parents, and students.
• Make explicit the primacy of affective goals and expand Hebrew infusion practices to accomplish those goals.
• To teach decoding, spend less class time in large groups and more time in one-on-one and small-group configurations.
• With parent buy-in, offer a small amount of gamified homework.
• Offer multiple tracks or an enrichment option for families interested in conversational Hebrew.
• Change the informal nomenclature to stop using the misnomer “Hebrew school,” except where Hebrew language proficiency is the primary focus.  

In addition, the nationwide and regional educational infrastructure should offer more funded online training for teachers, information sharing, and consulting and training for school directors.