Category: Hebrew Language Instruction (Fall 2005)
Debbie Sondheim holds a masters degree in literacy from Bank Street College of Education and is a long-time teacher of Tanakh. Her current project combines those two spheres which in her work with Learning Disabled students at S/A/R Academy in Riverdale, NY. The research for this paper is based on work she did as a Melton Center Senior Educator.
In day schools today, Tanakh teachers are often faced with a dilemma. The Bible is written in Hebrew and yet, for the overwhelming majority of students in the Diaspora, Hebrew is not their mother tongue. Moreover, even for our students who are fluent in Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew poses an additional challenge. The challenge is exacerbated in students with learning disabilities. I offer here a rationale for teaching Tanakh in Hebrew, even to students with learning disabilities, and will present a method that I have developed and used over the past few years that addresses various difficulties.
Learning from the original
The importance of the language of instruction is not to be underestimated. If we choose to teach Tanakh in English, or any language other than in the original Hebrew of the Bible, we are sending a message that there is no added value in learning the Bible in Hebrew. Moreover, we are implying that Hebrew is simply another language among the hundreds of other that exist now and have existed before. Even if we never say this to our students, they understand this. Students learn from what we do as well as from what we say.
On the other hand, if we choose to teach in Hebrew, or at the very least, if we use a Hebrew text of the Bible and teach the basic Hebrew vocabulary of the text, then our students will receive quite a different message. Once a student is able to read and understand the basic ideas directly from the Biblical text, a new world has opened up. Students, who are able to read the Hebrew text in a meaningful way, are able to interact with the text in a way that is qualitatively different than those who work from a translation, and they become part of a chain extending from Mount Sinai through the ages.
Moshe Greenberg (1990), in an address to the faculty of Prozdor, outlined his idea of teaching Bible in Hebrew to students in America, whose mother tongue is not Hebrew. Acknowledging that teachers must be aware that teaching in Hebrew necessitates sacrificing some of the ideas that are found in the text, he declared that despite this tradeoff, “teaching the Bible in its original language is a preeminent value,” and that the teacher's responsibility includes helping the students to understand the added value in that extra effort. In his words, "as soon as you translate the cultural cargo to any other language, you lose essences. It is up to the teacher of Hebrew Bible to prove that point….Your goal should be to make explicit to your students the advantages of the study of the Hebrew text…"
Greenberg posits two ways in which to convey this message. Firstly, he suggests that teachers "try and select examples which will maximize in the student’s consciousness, the advantages of studying the text in Hebrew. That is how they will come to understand why they have to spend all this time in Hebrew." He recommends that students be presented with a text and the commentaries of Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra and Rashbam. The focus of the two or three verses presented should be a textual problem, and how the different commentaries deal with it. The problem should stem directly from the words of the text, the type of difficulty that would not be particularly evident in a translation of the text. In this way the students will come to see for themselves why it is so important for them to learn the text in its original language. The second suggestion Greenberg offers is to provide a text whose translation is not self-evident. After having the students struggle with arriving at their own translations, present them with two new translations, and have them contrast them. "If you’ve done your work right," says Greenberg, "they will be in a position to judge the translations. What greater satisfaction can they have than this little taste of power at being above the translators?"
Dealing with challenged students
The traditional system used to teach Biblical vocabulary is a disjointed, rote method of word acquisition that insures limited success for a limited time to a limited number of students. Typically, students are usually presented with weekly lists of "difficult words" which they need to master before they can even begin to understand and deal with the text of the Tanakh. The lists of words are culled from the text that will be learned that week, and are often presented as they appear in the text, in their conjugated form. Rarely is there a reference made to the word roots, and rarely is there a connection between one week’s list and the next. Skills are confused with rote learning, and there is little accommodation for learning styles.
Learning disabilities fall into a variety of categories. For some, the challenge is with memory, which, in the study of Tanakh, is compounded by the language-factor. For others, the pacing poses a particular challenge. And yet for others, the language itself is the disability, bringing considerable frustration to students who otherwise excel.
The language issues are exacerbated in the study of Tanakh, as Biblical Hebrew differs considerably from contemporary Hebrew. In their first few years, students are presented primarily with verbs and nouns that they could act out or see pictures of. This is often not the case with the Tanakh vocabulary. In fact, Tanakh vocabulary often consists of words that students are not even familiar with in their native tongue, as they are not taken from the world of the child. How many third-grade students have seen or are familiar with the word “trough”? It is as foreign to them in English as its equivalent in Hebrew. Moreover, the style (phrase and sentence structure) of Biblical language is foreign to the elementary school student. Im matzati hen be-einekha, is not a phrase that can be easily rendered into English, and certainly not into the English of the typical nine-year old. While these issues complicate the learning for all students, they are especially challenging for the learning-disabled student.
Regarding pacing, in a typical learning environment there are 10-15 words assigned weekly for memorization. While this is a challenge for the regular student, the learning-disabled student needs to invest special efforts and time to accomplish the task, time which s/he often does not have. Further, since there is little connection between one week’s list and the next, the student acquires no incremental database. As a result, despite many hours of effort and memorization, by the end of the year there is little retention of any of the hundreds of vocabulary words they have struggled to memorize. The frustration and sense of failure carry over from year to year, leading to lowered self-image and self-expectations, and setting the stage for further disappointment and despair.
Word Frequency and Root Study
Research suggests choosing words based on the frequency of their appearance in the Biblical text, with special attention paid to verbs and word roots. Shlomo Haramati (1983) proposed a step-by-step plan for teaching the vocabulary of the siddur and Bible based on word frequency, and both he and Manfred Pick generated word-frequency lists. According to a study done by Pick, there are 16,258 words (exclusive of pronouns) in Breishit, which may be reduced to a total of 1,545 “basic word forms.” His study further revealed that a relatively small number of high frequency words are responsible for a large portion of the total text of Breishit, and Leibenstein (1992) recommends that "special attention be given to the 270 high frequency words."
| % of Text of Genesis | # of words | Frequency of appearance |
| 70.7% | 146 words | 20 times and more |
| 80.8% | 270 words | 10 times and more |
| 88.9% | 468 words | 5 times and more |
A second key element in Hebrew language acquisition is the study of the root, and not its various conjugated forms. As the student begins to recognize the common denominator among the words being learned, the patterns observed will help the student recognize the root in other words. As our brains seek to make sense of the world, pattern-recognition plays an essential role. And helping our students to recognize the patterns in their vocabulary is necessary for their comprehension and retention of the language.
Unifix cubes, found in most elementary school classrooms and which come in a variety of colors, can be attached to each other and are generally used for addition and subtraction practice. Toby Schwarzmer (1993) adapted Unifix cubes to provide a clear visual representation of the construction of words in the teaching of Hebrew: white cubes were used to display verb roots, yellow for prefixes and blue for suffixes; green cubes were used for nouns. The students enjoy the concreteness of the activity and they are able to “switch the endings” from one “word” to another. This also enables them to learn the idea of the universal patterns of grammar.
(VA)²+I – (Visual Approach to Vocabulary Acquisition plus Integration)
Learning of any kind, especially vocabulary, cannot take place in a vacuum. Students learn best when the newly learned material is connected to that which they already know. When a student can connect the information - a historical fact, a scientific concept, a multiplication fact or a word - to other information that s/he already knows, there is a far greater rate of understanding and retention.
While visual intelligence is often relegated to the domain of the visual arts, I believe it to be a rich, untapped reservoir that our students possess. The approach I've developed, (VA)²+I, incorporates a visual element into the acquisition of Biblical vocabulary. For the past five years I have used it with my learning-disabled students (grades 2, 3, and 4) in the Resource Room at SAR Academy. The efficacy of the program increased with students who worked with me for more than one year.
The first element of the program is that it is based on the published Haramati/Pick list. The words to be studied are pre-determined, and the root of each is written on an index card, with the letters of the root marked by a dot. Any root letters that sometimes drop out in conjugation are shadowed with a gray marker around the letter. This is explained to the students on their first encounter with the card. Young children can relate to stories, and anthropomorphizing letters is far easier than saying that the heh in the root h-l-kh is a guttural and therefore subject to being dropped, so I sometimes say that the since the letter ‘falls down’, we need to make it ‘doubly strong’.
I then tell the student the meaning of the root, sometimes in Hebrew and other times in English. After the student has been introduced to the root and its key letters emphasized, the student is asked to draw something that will remind him/her of its meaning. The drawing need not represent the meaning of the word, but needs to function as a mnemonic for the student. For example, for the word וימל, the root written on the card is מ.ו.ל.. One student drew bagels and lox, as he associated brit milah with the meal he ate at one he attended. Involving the student in the making of meaning and creating the memory patterns is essential. As Linda Campbell (1996) writes:
By supporting written or spoken language with charts, diagrams or photographs, learning can be facilitated and retention reinforced for many students. … Graphic representations of information offer valuable educational function: they present, define, interpret, manipulate, synthesize, and demonstrate data. Visuals enhance instruction as they clarify concepts teachers are explaining; they provide students with visual means to understand and to communicate what they have learned…
Significant gains have been reported in reading comprehension when students create mental images of what they have read. By creating both external and internal images these students are not only learning academic content, they are also creating and expressing their own visual and symbolic language systems.
The impact of empowering the students cannot be underestimated, as they no longer feel imminent defeat when faced with a Biblical text. Hadassah Bennett (1987) writes that the active learner is viewed as exerting control over his learning and being aware of that control. According to Bennett, there is evidence that increased awareness of learning strategies and self awareness of what the learner is doing helps to improve actual learning. I try to increase the self-awareness of the students and talk with them about the “mind’s eye” – that we have videotape in our heads recording constantly and that with practice they can learn to access the replay button. These learning-disabled students, who have often felt totally powerless in their academic world, now hear the message that, “I know that you have what to offer. I know that you have ideas. There are no words to get in the way. You do not have to stand up in front of anyone; just draw something on this card that makes sense to you.”
While some students are initially hesitant, their love of drawing (especially at the younger ages) usually prevails. The availability of pens and markers in different colors and widths makes for a user-friendly environment, and as they begin to draw their self-esteem is raised. This feeling often affects their performance in their other studies as well, and some even begin to use this visual cueing method in other subjects too.
Once the drawing is complete and they have explained out loud the connection, we proceed to the actual word as it appears in the text. At this point the card is turned over to reveal the other, lined, side. On that side, the exact phrase in which the word appeared is recorded. For example, in the card with מ.ו.ל. on it, I would write יז:יא- המול לכם כל זכר , since that is the first place that the student encountered the word. From that time on, every time the student encounters a word with the same root the phrase containing the new word would be added (by the student) to the list. The process of writing the phrase is an additional method of familiarizing the student with the word, as the patterns of word-usage become more recognizable as the list of phrases grows. Each student's cards are kept in a box that is organized alphabetically, and the colorful plastic dividers make the entire project look and feel professional and giving the student a sense of ownership. This sense of ownership is reinforced as the student takes his/her card when returning to the regularly scheduled class.
Particularly for learning disabled students, it is important to activate multiple learning modes, both for reinforcement of learning as well to find the mode that will help the individual learn best. It is for this reason that students learn by seeing the root, drawing, envisioning the word as if photographing it, and writing the phrase in which the word is embedded.
The regular reinforcement of a limited vocabulary aids students in absorption and retention, focusing their attention on the most important vocabulary elements. The students see the fruits of their labor and feel empowered when they encounter the root again. Slowly they begin to view the text as less threatening. The pace of the learning is student-driven, as the more words the child can learn, the more s/he is introduced to.
After the initial meeting, each session begins with a review of the cards. Usually two students come for a joint session, and the review takes the form of the students "testing" each other. Various levels of testing include covering and revealing the visual clues, and, if necessary, a review with the students of their own drawings, sometimes resulting in the students drawing a new, more effective visual clue. With time, students take pride in remembering the meanings of the roots without the need to resort to the visual clues, and many report that they imagine the visual clue in their mind's eye, having creating the association with the root. Sometimes the students can reconstruct the entire Biblical story from just the initial phrase and its associations, while at other times the Biblical text is reviewed. Upon their return to the classroom, their bolstered confidence enables them to become more active participants in the class, empowered with knowledge and skills and a design and desire for success.
References
Bennett, H. W. (1987). Who is a Successful Learner?, Ten Da’at, 2 (2) 21.
Campbell, L., Campbell, B. & Dickinson, D. (1996). Teaching & Learning Through Multiple Intelligences, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.
Kittel, B. P., Hoffer, V. & Wright, R. A. (1989). Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Greenberg, M. (1990). On Teaching the Bible. In H. Deitcher & A. J. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Studies in Jewish Education - Volume V. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press.
Haramati, S. (1983).הבנת הנקרא בסידור ובמקרא: עקרונות דידאקטיים לחינוך היהודי בתפוצות Jerusalem: Torah Education Department of the Jewish Agency.
Leibenstein, D. (1992) A Chumash and Rashi curriculum: For Eight Grades of Hebrew School (Experimental Edition). Brooklyn, NY: Torah Umesorah Publications.
Mansoor, M. (1980). Biblical Hebrew Step-by-Step. Michigan: Baker Book House.
Schwarzmer, T. G. (1993). Early Learning Strategies in Judaic Studies, Ten Da’at, 7 (1).