Want to learn Hebrew fast in a fun and unintimidating setting?

Do you wish you could speak Hebrew while also learning to read and understand it?

“Hebrew Today” is a new program that will do exactly that. Developed by Dr. Zev bar-Lev, an applied linguistics
professor, the methods he developed are based on his long career in language learning and language teaching.
The 3 Goals of “Hebrew Today”:

1. Speaking Hebrew: as psychological stimulation to learning language.

Didn’t you know how to speak English before you learned to read and write? Learning to speak words first gives
a context to learning letters. Many of the words taught for speaking fun, are also found in the Sidur or Torah so
that students will be able to form some meaning for themselves.

2. Pronouncing/decoding Hebrew

 

The reality of American Jewish life is that the children will have to pronounce big chunks of Hebrew they don’t understand for their Bar/Bat-Mitzvah. Pronouncing is taught from the beginning of the curriculum using fun and useful associations to engage students. No more “pre-school” like Hebrew school curriculum where children learn about letters without any context as to their use.

3. Meaning of prayers

 

Prayers are taught both orally, to learn to sing the whole prayer and as language puzzles,
where students learn to extrapolate meaning, even while only knowing a few words.
 

Requirements for a successful program implementation:

- Enthusiastic teachers, anxious to learn new methods and see results in the classroom.

- Parents who are open to having their children learn differently from how they learned.

 

Kindergarteners will not be singing the Alef-Bet song or counting 1-10, but they will be able to:

1. pronounce words with the 26 letters and vowels they learn
2. say spontaneous sentences of their own with the 18 vocabulary words they learn and read
sentences with these (sight) words

1st graders will be able to:

1. pronounce words with 44 letters and vowels (48 total needed for Sidur pronouncing)
2. say their own sentences with 26 words
3. read sentences and stories with these words.

2nd graders will finally sing the Alef-Bet song. They will be able to pronounce prayers from the
Sidur and when someone says to them “You know Hebrew? Say something” they will be able
to rattle off a fluent, confident and comprehensible paragraph about themselves or any of
several other topics.
 

For a list of continued skills Kindergarten through 7th grade, please click here for more information.

 

“Hebrew Today” uses Sheltered Initiation Language Learning, a word-based method that imparts language abilities from a small set of maximally useful words.* Words are taught with several fun techniques (“glyphs,”** associations, “skip-reading,” puzzles and games). These skills include spontaneous and creative speaking abilities, reading comprehension, and knowledge of prayers. This method avoids overwhelming beginners with complicated grammar and imparts confidence, fluency and accuracy in speaking, and comprehension in reading and prayer.

 

Skills taught:

- speaking with approximately 200 words and 30 sentence patterns taught over 8 years

-42 prayers and blessings

- pronouncing text (all grades levels)

- reading and prayers for comprehension (do you know what “motzih” means? our kindergarteners do, and theyspontaneously say their own sentence with it also)

- writing letters (Kindergarten), writing words (1st grade) and sentences (2nd - 7th grade)

- reciting the Alef-bet (2nd-3rd grade)- alphabetizing (3rd - 7th grade)

- cursive (6th - 7th grade)

 

 

* A guiding principle in choosing which words to teach when is “asymmetric sequencing,” the principle that like words not betaught together lest they be confused. For example, in K the words for “I” and “you” were being confused. They are nowseparated by 5 lessons. Also, numbers are taught in different years so that they are learned as individual words, not as asequence. For example, you should not have to count to six in your head every time you want to say “shesh.”

 

** A “glyph” is a picture of the word meaning that has the shape of the letters, for example means “six” and retainsthe shape of the 2 letters “shin.” In studies with learning disabled English speaking children, children were able to read moreeasily when English words were turned into pictographs, similar to glyphs. Glyphs are used in grades K through 2nd. Wecontinue to use pictures to teach words through 7th to avoid teaching by translation.