This was a hot Shabbat, very hot. I can't remember the last time I suffered like this from the heat. We had a full house. My married daughter and the family were/are over.
Actually the kids are still here. They're watching a Sesame Street movie about the letter "Y." Even though they don't know much English they like it. I speak to them in English with the odd word in Hebrew to give clues. It's amazing how they answer and act appropriately without really understanding all I say.
The eldest wants me to really teach her English, reading and writing, too.
18 comments:
Shalom!
Teach the grandchildren! It'll save them so much agony later. The national-religious crowd is very schizophrenic concerning English. Foreign languages are shunned, sometimes with a vengeance, and then later when bagrut exams and higher education come many regret not working harder on English.
It's not just a matter of language acquisition but an entire way of thinking and looking at the world.
Go for it, Batya!
Hadassa, I know that from my days as an English Teacher. So many of my remedial students had an English-speaking parent and could have been good and successful EFL students if only their parents had spoken to them in English.
Sara Layah, so true, thanks.
I don't know about your family, but when I think about how much work it took for my Bubby & Zeidy to learn English, it seems a shame to let it go in one generation. I realize it's not lashon hakodesh (though neither is street Hebrew), but it is a big part of their heritage, plus a useful global language.
Interesting. Both my sons decided they would speak to their children in English. My younger son's wife speaks to their son in Spanish. Hopefully, the kids will be bilingual, and my oldest Israeli grandson, trilingual!
It's a little odd for me, though--I always spoke to my kids in Hebrew, and want to speak to my grandkids in Hebrew as well. I have to practice not doing that. Very strange...!
My father insisted on bringing me up in his Biblical/Bialik Hebrew back in the States, even though it wasn't his first language (or second, or third). Thank to him I arrived in Israel already knowing how to speak the language, albeing a bit archaicly, using madu'a instead of lama and actually calling a sweater a tzimriya! Taking his tack, I insisted on bringing my girls up in English. It was sweet to tell my father that while my first word was "or", my oldest daughter's first word was light.
Jen, LL, Miri, I just got back from giving the granddaughters an "English lesson" while their parents were at work and brother in the "maon."
They both want to learn to read and write English at this stage, not only understand and speak it. They're young also try to understand the french they sometimes here.
The family in the states appriciates that the kids are familiar with English, even though they don't really speak it yet. I think that it's really important to expand linguistic knowledge by using as many languages as one can with kids. When they are little their minds are so receptive.
Miri, you must have an amazing depth and richness in your Hebrew.
Miriyummy, are we sisters who were hidden from each other for 40 years (er, maybe more)?
My first words in Hebrew, from a Hebraist writer/poet father, were not only tzimriyah, but sach-rahok and sikayon. Bet you don't know what THEY were supposed to mean.
I still sometimes say "le-talPEN," and people...laugh, good-naturedly.
miri, LL, I remember an uncle showing off his Hebrew: "אני חופץ..." "Ani chofetz..."
Yes, אני חפץ sounds pretty archaic these days...
Batya, get a hold of the book "Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, and Elaine Bruner. It's a wonderful system - I successfully used it with all 7 of mine.
It's available on amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280775793&sr=1-1
You can preview the book - "click to LOOK INSIDE"
LL, אני חופץ sounded archaic 40 years ago. I don't remember it from Hebrew School a decade earlier. Actually, I don't remember much Hebrew at all from there except reading with an Ashkenaz accent and noticing that when the Israeli teachers spoke among themselves they didn't sound like the lessons.
Sara Layah, 100? That's a lot! The big problem is that they don't understand much Enlgish. They guess well when I speak, according to context.
The 100 lessons only require 20 min/day and go quickly. It's so exciting to see the glimmer of understanding and word recognition in a child's eyes!
I don't know how well this system works with EFL/ESL youth but think it's worthwhile to look into it via preview on amazon.com
Thanks, I'll try.
Shalom!
Batya, definitely try the 100 Lessons book. Sara showed it to my mother 13 years ago when she was visiting me. Upon return to the US my mother immediately sent me a copy and also used it for teaching. My first three learned how to read with it and the fourth is most of the way through. I learned how to read with a similar system, the ITA.
Miriyummy, madu'a and lama do not mean the same thing. I have been taught this by teachers and rabbis. Madu'a means why and lama means for what.
Batya, LL "Ani chofetz" will always sound poetic to me. I rather like it.
LL, I hear regular Israelis using "le-talPEN", although I never hear them saying that they're going to do it on a "sach-rahok" Could you tell me what a "sikayon" is? Thanks
Thanks, I'll have to check it out.
Hadassa: "Sikayon" was the attempted Hebrew word for "television." Never took.
ll, thanks
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