The umbrella organization for North American Jewish Day Schools, PRIZMAH, invited me to submit an article for their most recent educational journal. The volume’s theme, ‘Deepening Talent,’ focuses on “cultivating growth and vitality for all its [school] stakeholders, from students to board members.” My article, “Reimagining Modern Hebrew Instruction,” appears in the ‘Study and Reflection’ section, and mentions many of the precepts contained in my articles on this blog, with a focus on transforming Hebrew teacher and learner attitudes and outcomes.
Here’s the link to the journal: https://www.prizmah.org/deepening-talent
And here’s a direct link to my article on page 54:
https://www.prizmah.org/reimagining-modern-hebrew-instruction
As always, I invite readers to reflect, question, challenge and engage.
Please leave a comment and/or contact me through the blog!
Summary Of T/CI-Aligned Practices:
Finally, Guácala goes (drives his minivan?) to Costco (where all roads lead.) The kids love the very mention of Costco, and glaze over with memories of bite-size samples.
I hope this blogpost finds you well and off to a great start in your comprehensible Hebrew classrooms. Here’s to a year filled with health, love, joy, meaning and Hebrew language acquisition!
using Hebrew in the lunchroom, and integrating Hebrew across the curriculum by singing Hebrew songs in Music class; employing Hebrew in Art, etc.
So output-based (speaking, writing) assessments for beginners are inappropriate, because these novices are still building a linguistic foundation. Would you proctor a speaking test on a 14-month-old? Assessments of comprehension are formative and ongoing by the well-trained T/CI instructor. Evaluators can see in class if students demonstrate comprehension of the input; parents can see it in a 
a 7-week Hebrew immersion camp experience that my son attended. While he had a fantastic summer, the entrance test likely created obstacles and anxiety for many potential campers. It sends the message, ‘If you don’t know or memorize this random list of low frequency words, you aren’t a good fit.’ Is that the pronouncement we want to convey to our 15-year-olds? The study packet asks students to (be prepared to) memorize semantic sets (i.e. – a list of colors, nature words, numbers), but 
giving students ample invitation and opportunity to speak in more supported and natural ways. This point cannot be overstated. Often teachers and schools feel pressure to prove that their Hebrew classes are effective, by showing what the kids can say/do with the language (“using complete sentences!”) Instead, we must re-educate our whole community on the importance of investing our time and energies in CI, and showing how it works by: 1. Demonstrating T/CI on parents; 2. Inviting them to observe Hebrew class: 3. videotaping our classes so that observers can appreciate just how much Hebrew our kids are hearing, attending to, and comprehending. There is no research that I know of supporting forced output (“You may only speak Hebrew in gym class”) or language practice, (as in, “Repeat after me:”) as a pathway to proficiency – for beginners. On the contrary, Comprehensible Input provides the fertile soil from which speaking and writing (output skills) grow.
But we know that young students (and most people, no?) like to talk about one thing more than any other – themselves! Therefore, setting a curriculum focused on exploiting the highest frequency words (& verb-containing chunks), while incorporating students’ interests and ideas through story-asking, is a fun, lively, engaging and creative way to customize classes for the group in front of you! Using hi-frequency verb-chunks to talk about “my house” or “my morning routine” is flat and boring, while collaborative, creative and personalized stories bring light and laughter into a discipline in which the brain is already working hard! We can decide upon a corps of foundational verbs we want to use, and recycle & add more each year to articulate a curriculum up through the grades, realizing full well that we may deviate while following student interest. The key to good language instruction is sustaining engagement and attention to the comprehensible message, while using Hebrew all the while.
but when you delve further, it, too, is filled with conjugation charts, rules about masculine and feminine, singular and plural endings, and thematic vocabulary lists, like, “places in the house,” or, “weather expressions.”
We need to scaffold the language, flesh it out, and communicate naturally, at the discourse level. No substitution drills. No scripted dialogues.
But until then, she’ll feel sustained, supported, and balanced by the training wheels of a story-based written curriculum.
*Elementary Pre-K to 2nd grade & 3rd to 5th grade sub-groups
I knew we needed to keep playing with the hi-frequency language we’d used thus far, and I was wary to start introducing more new words. The previous (Sunday) Hebrew class was so short – I teach three consecutive 20-minute classes – and with transition and settling time, the kids barely get 12-15 minutes of Hebrew instruction. Wednesday’s 35-minute classes are the heart of the program.
Our scene went absolutely NOWHERE. The initial query, “Are you tired?” set the docket for the rest of class. We simply and gleefully played with the unlikely possibility of taking a teacher-sanctioned nap in Hebrew class. We explored each actor’s interpretation, one after the next, affording lots of silliness, laughter, and compelling repetition.