Beginning Students of Hebrew Connect with Local Communities

Montclair State University students in Hebrew 101 recently completed a project more rigorous than the most demanding multiple choice test or written final: their first interviews with real live native speakers of Hebrew.

These students immersed themselves in Hebrew starting on day one of their first class, and quickly started to build comfort speaking to each other in the language. As soon as they have mastered the alphabet and basic vocabulary after a few weeks, faculty member Talya Schwarzer engages each Hebrew 101 student in a regular “Dialogue Journal,” an innovative conversational writing teaching technique that asks students to use Hebrew in an authentic communicative context without any outside assistance. Emphasizing that these journals between the students and the professor focus on communication, not on grammatical perfection, Schwarzer comments, “It is always interesting and new to see what each student chooses to write about. We ask questions, give answers, and get to know each other very well.”

Schwarzer’s class recently raised the communicative bar again as they interviewed local speakers of Hebrew for their Hebrew 101 course. Paired with conversation partners ranging from family members to on-campus faculty and local community leaders, the students composed questions and talked to their interviewees, focusing not just on using their best vocabulary and grammar, but also on understanding the interviewees’ personal experiences and following up on topics of interest. While one might expect such an activity to be reserved for speakers who have mastered the language, Schwarzer believes that it is essential to connect with representatives of the language and culture from the start. As she says, “The goal is to use everything we are learning in authentic ways to build communities” starting on Day 1.

Nerves aside and conversations complete, student feedback supports Schwarzer’s conviction. Following the project, one student commented, “I enjoyed being able to understand the interviewee’s responses to my questions” and another said, “The interview helped me overcome my anxiety of speaking Hebrew and really raised my confidence level. My personal goal is to learn to speak Hebrew since I plan to visit Israel and perhaps work there one day.” Friends and family members are happy to participate as interviewees and are often surprised that, after only one semester of Hebrew, students are able to carry on a basic conversation in Hebrew and understand the answers. The authenticity of Schwarzer’s individual project is a refreshing endeavor that supplies all the evidence she needs that her students are ready to connect across borders and build multilingual communities well beyond her class.