Reflection Statement

For my competence in communication, I am submitting a video recording of class instruction and evaluative reports from students regarding the effectiveness and goals achieved in the class. These demonstrates that I acquired practical experience in teaching how to read Hebrew to students who have had no prior experience learning the language formally.

I taught four students in total. They began by "playing" a Hebrew learning game online, found here, for approximately 3 contact hours, after which came the lesson in the video below.

Artifacts

1. The first video is a recording of class instruction with my student Michelle. This lesson came after about three contact hours with the Hebrew learning game. One of my principles is that if the student is exposed to the sounds of the language without the technical, grammatical explanations, they learn to read, and when the explanations come their attachment to the language is more solid. On the contrary, if they are taught traditionally, it can be overwhelming and counter productive for their affective attachment to the language long term.

Hebrew Reading Lesson

2. The second video is the theoretical foundation I developed for teaching Hebrew from an modified Second Language Acquisition approach.

Affective Hebrew Instruction Approach

3. Evaluative reports from students regarding the effectiveness and goals achieved in the class.

Michelle:

The game is easy to use, engaging, and highly effective in helping with pronunciation and word recognition. Because of the gamified approach, it keeps you interested. There is just enough repetition of words to build confidence without being overwhelming. The only thing I would comment on otherwise is the timed responses to answer quickly. When you are first learning, it can unintentionally create a sense of urgency to guess rather than learn the word. I eventually ignored the prompts to go faster and focused on the words.

The game helped me quickly learn letters, pronunciation, and full words in Hebrew. My prior knowledge of Hebrew was limited only to pronunciation of certain Hebrew songs. I had no knowledge of the alef bet and could not read any Hebrew. I now can recognize the letters I have learned up to my current achievement level and easily recognize several familiar words. I am amazed at the level of progress I have achieved after only a few short hours using the app, combined with the lessons.

Honestly, I have hesitated to pursue learning Hebrew, despite the desire to do so, because of my limited time schedule. Because I can use the game in brief spurts, I can easily fit it into a few minutes throughout the week. Seeing the ease of my progress has motived me to continue! 

Jolie:

I thought the game introduced a very unique approach to learning and immersion. Before I couldn't read any Hebrew but now it's given me a more comprehensive and fun way to learn. I recommend this to anyone who struggles with the regular language learning curriculums.

Jacob:

The game you suggested works wonders! I’m already catching on to it with one session, I now feel more comfortable with my knowledge of Hebrew and I will continue to use it further. 

Evan:

At first glance, I didn’t think the game was going to be a huge help, but eventually, when I got the hang of it, I was understanding Hebrew better than every other class I’ve taken before. The game is simple, free to use, and is a great help to people wanting to learn Hebrew.

Video of the Hebrew Reading Game

Learning Reflection

As I developed and demonstrated communication,  I have learned: 1) that I need to set my students up at the beginning to be familiarized with the alef bet before they start with the game. Some of them were slowed down because they were wondering about things like dagesh forte, final nun and mem, and other issues. 2) I have also learned by this experience that as good as the game is, it is too long and repetitive. It has nearly 800 levels! They go fairly quick, but it takes too long. 3) To address this, I have began to develop a set of Quizlet tools to replace the game.

Lifelong Development Statement

As a result of the experiences documented by these artifacts, I will continue to develop in communication by incorporating the feedback from my experiences teaching students how tot read Hebrew. The theory I have developed needs to be field tested further as I have experienced in this internship. Different students learn differently, so I need to make the method more accessible for all to be able to adapt to it and adopt it. I am looking forward to experimenting also with further lessons using the biblical text after students have learn the basics of Hebrew reading.