First Day of Class: Shalom Kita Aleph

I spent three weeks prior to the start of school traveling the country and visiting several Israeli tourist attractions. It was a good decision to arrive early and allowing myself room to adjust and soak in the environment. But now I was about to get down and dirty with Israeli culture.

The Israelis are “famous” for a type of school they run called an ‘ulpan’. It features full language immersion as a means to learn faster and with greater accuracy. Focus on full language immersion, meaning, everything will be taught in Hebrew. Learning Hebrew by hearing Hebrew. This is what makes this type of school special.

My instinct is to say that it must be impossible to learn anything without translation. But this sort of school has been relatively successful. In fact, several other countries around the world have emulated this style of teaching; Wales, New Zealand, Scotland, Catalonia, etc.

And most importantly, it takes guts to throw yourself into this sort of situation. This is where I enter.

(above) Ulpan Gordon, Tel Aviv, Israel

(above) Entrance to Ulpan Gordon, Tel Aviv

When I walked into my classroom, there were already four classmates making introductions with each other. To my great pleasure, they were all speaking English although none of them with an American accent.

This is where my mind gets totally blown away by the diversity that is my ulpan class. My initial introduction to those first four people revealed that they were all from European nations; England, Switzerland, Italy, and Belgium. Very soon the room filled with the 35 or so students that had signed up for the class. I quickly learned that all of the students arrived from all over the world; Japan, Brazil, Australia, Russia, Uganda (no joke!), Korea, the United States…. I’m sure there are more countries to name but you get my point. Mind blowingly eclectic!

And the one unifying language we all spoke to each other with was English. Lucky me.

One of the girls from Switzerland sat next to me as the class started to settle for the instructor and we both admitted to being very curious and apprehensive about the courses teaching style; total language immersion.

From prodding E for Hebrew words plus a short lived language study course while I was in Iraq, I managed to pick up a few things of the language. But I wouldn’t admit to know enough to form a correct sentence. Talking with others on the first day, I could tell that most of the students were at the same level as myself.

The instructor, Esther, entered and greeted the class with a hearty Hebrew, “Boker tov!” (Good morning.) It was a decent start. A phrase a knew. Although the remainder of the day wouldn’t be so seamless.

For the next four hours, the class mimicked her words and paid close attention to her hands that were pointing and gesturing as a means to explain what she was saying. It was the most intense game of charades I’ve ever played.

This is what I comprehended the first hour:

Esther: “tfdk fwo djfiow jfdsl. YES, jkfd. fjdks YOU fjdks kfdjs NO dfjkwo UNDERSTAND fdjkofw.

Me: ………. blank stare.

But an interesting thing happened after the initial shock. We all started to comprehend. And soon enough, we were all telling each other our names… in Hebrew. After that, we were describing ourselves as students who are learning at Ulpan Gordon with the address of the building. It was strangely impressive!

Of course, I still felt blind to most of the words she was saying, but it’s amazing how quickly your brain can soak information when it has no other choice but to do so.

….more next time.

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