Teaching Hebrew as a Living Language
By Ricky Stamler-Goldberg
The debate over the success of Hebrew language instruction in our Jewish Day Schools is a long standing one (even Jewish comedians have gotten in on the discussion - comedian Elon Gold clip). As opposed to other foreign languages, we view Hebrew as different, in its essence and at its core, and that has resulted in many a heated debate on the topic of our students' Hebrew language proficiency. Once taught primarily to give our students access to our holiest texts and rituals, with an expectation that our children be able to participate at a Seder or to recite Kiddush at a Shabbat table, we now, more than ever, believe that we have a responsibility for our students see and appreciate Hebrew as the living language of the Jewish People, the State of Israel, and that developing a love of Hebrew helps strengthen these integral connections.
We want our students to feel comfortable and confident around Hebrew and Hebrew speakers; to understand and engage with the songs they hear, the Instagram posts they see, the news they watch, the T-shirts they wear, and the campers they meet. Immersing our children in Hebrew helps them fully appreciate the Jewish world that is already part of their lives and their personal stories.
At Schechter Bergen, our day begins with a “Boker Tov” rather than a “Good Morning,” a small but intentional reminder of the central role Hebrew plays in our school. From the hallways to the classrooms, Hebrew is woven into the fabric of daily life. Our teachers work diligently to stay informed about the newest curriculum materials available; and have taken advantage of extensive professional development over the years. We utilize leveled groupings in our classrooms to ensure that all students are appropriately challenged and have provided support for those who need it. And while we have seen overall success - evident in the high schools that accept our graduates - by our own standards, we are still coming up short. With strong reading and writing skills, our students are still not speaking Hebrew comfortably or demonstrating comprehension in a way that can be measured as competency, or to the way in which we have committed ourselves.
In order to further develop and improve our students’ Hebrew language experience we partnered with the one organization that has made Hebrew language instruction its primary goal: Hebrew at the Center (HATC). Founded in 2007, HATC has defined its mission as “advancing Hebrew teaching and learning in order to professionalize the field, develop tools that enable educators to empower students, set goals, and assess programs.”
Research consistently shows that sustained professional development drives meaningful change in instruction and student learning. With this in mind, we spent the 2024-2025 school year with HATC assessing our needs, defining our goals, and creating a 3 year plan to help move us forward. As a team we created a Hebrew Mission Statement and then began to work together as a faculty learning about ways to measure language proficiency and about assessment tools such as the Avant, a standards-based measurement of proficiency for our older students. By the end of year one we had piloted Avant in our 5th and 7th grades and were able to confirm that our students' skills were above the North American average in all areas of the Language Proficiency Scale: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. The Avant assessment also confirmed that while still above average, our need for improvement was greatest in the area of communication and our students' ability to speak Hebrew with fluency.
Over the course of this school year we have spent more time in professional development, focusing as a school-wide team on developing strategies for increased opportunities for conversation during every language-based lesson. Further developing their understanding of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), teachers are now investing more time in directly increasing opportunities for students to speak during their classes; communicating meaning, using real-life situations to speak about, offering more open-ended questions, and developing more student-centered learning.
In May, we will again administer the Avant to a group of students, so that we can begin to collect and compare the data and look for trends and growth to help us adjust our instruction moving forward. We will keep working, with clarity and purpose, to ensure that our students continue to strengthen their reading and writing skills in order to uncover the beauty and complexity of our sacred texts. We will work equally hard to make sure that they can respond appropriately to the shout-out on the streets of Israel of “ma nishma, achi” (“how are you doing, my brother”); that they appreciate the nuance and beauty of this colloquial expression, and that by virtue of understanding it they are a little more a part of Am Yisrael.
The Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. Solomon Schechter does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of our educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.