Gabrielle Raffio's Posts (29)
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During weeks 9 and 10, we learned about the vocabulary that is used at the dinner table i.e plate, fork, napkin. I can read these words and pronounce them correctly, but I chose not to memorize them and their meaning. For me, this vocabulary is useful but not imperative to know before going to the country. I found it interesting to hear about Emily's family meals and how they compared to family meals in the US. To practice my pronunciation of these words, I used Rosetta Stone until I felt that I was pronouncing each word correctly. I practiced these words with Emily, and she helped me perfect my pronunciation. I will build on this in the coming weeks by having Emily test me on the pronunciation of the words.
When I first developed my goals for learning Hebrew in January, my goals were a bit advanced for what I could practically accomplish in 16 weeks. After adjusting my goals, however, I feel as if I have successfully accomplished most of my goals this semester. I can read Hebrew with vowels and thus would classify myself at a Kindergarten speaking level. With help from Emily and Michelle, I believe I can pronounce words correctly. I have enjoyed reading the children’s book because I think the vocabulary is easy to understand and I can contextually understand the story. I have learned the alphabet, greetings, and farewells successfully. I did not learn how to write a Valentine’s day card, but chose to learn other things instead. I know how to read the vocabulary for ordering food, but I don’t know the words by memory. Finally, I know how to read the words that describe my family, but I do not know them by memory.
The stumbling blocks I encountered were making time to practice my Hebrew for at least 15 minutes a day. There were times when I was away for a weekend or for spring break and found it hard to practice my Hebrew. I think that this made it harder for me to remember vocabulary. Because of scheduling differences, another obstacle for me was finding the time to meet with Emily. Michelle and I had difficulty finding two hours a week that would work with Emily's schedule because of her rigorous course load and her playing tennis. That being said, when the three of us did meet, we were productive and I found I learned the most during these meetings.I was able to overcome my stumbling blocks by using Rosetta Stone and other resources such as YouTube to practice my pronunciation. I also found it helpful to practice with Michelle because we were at the same speaking and reading level.
What I found to be most interesting throughout my learning Hebrew was the freedom we had in choosing what to learn. I decided it was not important for me to memorize vocabulary and so I focused more on pronunciation and on reading. I enjoyed being able to pick and choose the subjects that I wanted to learn and how these were applicable to me. Knowing that I will be going to Israel on my Birthright, I chose subjects that would be relevant to that experience. What I found to be least interesting to me was learning the grammatical side of Hebrew. Both Michelle and I were not heavily interested in this, so we hardly focused on this in our studies.
I would like to continue my self-directed Hebrew studies post college, but understand this may be difficult with the motivations of a language partner and the resources available to us at University of Richmond. I think that before my trip to Israel I would like to review what I have learned so that I can better immerse myself in the culture throughout my trip.
After reading Yudhijt Bhattacharjee’s article “Why Bilinguals Are Smarter,” I found myself feeling proud and satisfied for taking SDLC. This article confirmed many beliefs I had about bilinguals and made me want to continue my Hebrew studies. The part of the article that talked about the executive functions reminded me of another course I am taking and how people with more fully developed executive functions are actually more successful academically. I think that in America the way we go about learning languages is disruptive in its nature. Growing up, I took French starting in 6th grade and was only in my class for 3 hours a week. How could a teacher expect a student to learn a whole new language in such limited time? I think that we should teach children two languages throughout their entire lives, beginning at childhood. Another part of the article I found interesting is that bilinguals are better at creative problem solving. As someone who is applying for jobs, I have found that one of the key skills employers are looking for is analytical thinking skills. I think that bilinguals are much better at analytical thinking and therefore would stand out in an applicant pool. This article was very interesting and should encourage people to want to learn multiple languages.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AX--cMfooYYZxAeLbuIQxwEtu-EGez2laVEauBDv9Gs/edit?usp=sharing
Here is a picture of an example of some of the vocabulary we learned this semester in our readings. Although the book we read was not very relevant, it was helpful to learn words for pronunciation.
http://prezi.com/5cfmtplopbyy/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
After reading Kirk Johnson’s article “Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction,” I couldn't help but think about the history of the Hebrew language. Both Siletz Dee-ni and Hebrew have experienced a near death of the language and both have been brought back to life. The difference between the two stories, however, is the time periods in which the revitalization took place and the resources available during those times. One of the most powerful tools in bringing back a language is to spread it through the Internet and that is what Bud Lane, a tribe member, was working on. Through his work on the online dictionary, Lane was able to make more connections with those worldwide who speak the language. I think that it is important to recognize how useful the Internet is and the ability to use it to find others who speak such an unusual language is key. I also believe that the ability for a small tribe to revitalize their language shows their cultural strength and pride. Something I found interesting in this article is how governmental boarding schools play a big role in killing the tribal languages. I’m disappointed to know that administrators at these schools do not find it important to keep these languages alive. In conclusion, I think this article really shows the importance of using one’s resources to spread ideas.
Knowing the history of Hebrew has been helpful for me to learn the language in a few ways. Through doing research and talking to my language partner, I found out that the Hebrew language once was dead and came back to life around 1881. This is extremely impressive and very motivating for me as a Jew to want to learn the language to make sure that it never dies off again. It is hard for me to imagine or even to understand how a language can “die” and then come back to life. This has taught me how strong the culture is in Israel and the sacredness of the language. After learning more about the language’s history, I now can better understand its origins and the vast differences between male and female words. Today, Yiddish is dying out and I think that is important for the people of Israel to try and keep it alive. Learning the history of Hebrew has helped me to have a greater appreciation for the language.
This is recording of the vocabulary I learned for my cultural project on Hannukah.
Hannukah
Holiday
Tradition
Candles
Mannorah
Shamash
Latkes
Food
Dreidel
Blessing
Light
I found the article on communicative competence to be quite interesting and had a lot of overlap on what we have discussed in class. I think that when learning a new language it is important to recognize that people from different cultures may interpret a sentence differently than one would expect. Specifically this article refers to the phrase "I didn't like the casserole"and how this sentence alone can be interpreted as an apology or an insult. When learning a new language it is important to try and understand how phrases like this could be misinterpreted. I believe that this is the most frustrating part of learning a new language.
In the section on conversation analysis, I had never given much thought to the rules of conversation. This is extremely important when learning a new language, but I believe it can never really be learned until one immerses themselves into the culture in which they are studying. It is hard to understand the rules of conversation of another culture unless you are physically there. I think another challenge would be to adjust from your own culture's rules of conversation.
Finally, I found the part on gender and language to be interesting in terms of how this is different in each culture. This difference would be most vastly seen in cultures where women are not valued as highly as men. I don't think that this would be the case in Israel because men and women have equal rights, but I think this would be something to take note of if someone were learning the language of a country where women do not have the same rights as men. Overall I found this article to be interesting and it touched upon many of the themes from our class discussions.
After meeting with Dr. Scinicariello to review my progress so far, I have adjusted my learning plan to be more specific to what I have learned and where I want to be by the end of the semester. I have decided that I would rather focus on reading and writing rather than speaking. I want to be able to speak a little bit, but to me I find I enjoy reading and writing more so than speaking. We discussed having 5 topics of interest that we would go over with Emily and they are:
1. Greetings
2. Family
3. Food/meals/how to order in a restaurant
4. Leisure activities
5. Weather
For each of these goals I will describe the task and activity of achieving the goals.
Task: know how to greet people and introduce myself
Activity: I will learn from Emily how to properly greet people and introduce myself and will practice using the YouTalk App
Task: know how to describe my family
Activity: I will draw a picture of my family and use the vocabulary I learned from Emily to describe them
Task: know how to describe parts of a meal/what goes on the dinner table
Activity: I will learn the appropriate vocabulary from Emily and draw a dinner plate and describe the various objects. I will also use the YouTalk App to practice the new vocabulary
Task: know how to talk about things I do with my free time
Activity: Using vocabulary Emily has taught me I will draw a planner filling the days with things I like to do for fun
Task: learn how to describe the weather
Activity: I will watch YouTube clips of weather reports from Israel. I will also ask Emily to teach me some common words/phrases about weather. I will draw and describe some weather from a scene
After viewing the Culture Shock video in class last week, I couldn't help but reflect on my own experiences traveling abroad and dealing with culture shock. The video discussed the challenges that come with living somewhere new, especially the first two weeks of living there. I could relate to this statement when thinking back to my first two weeks living in Prague. I remember feeling very lost and alone and unsure of myself. I was experiencing a new language, a new location, and a new culture. Tasks that used to be so simple at home, such as going to the supermarket, always seemed to be a lot more effort and tiring. The way people checked out after shopping was confusing to me and I always felt like the woman checking me out was yelling at me for doing something wrong. Instead of getting frustrated by the situation, I tried to understand the differences in culture and how I could adjust my ways to fit into the Czech culture more.
Something that stood out to me during the movie was how many of the students being interviewed talked about how much harder the schooling is in America. I can understand how this is absolutely a huge challenge for a student studying abroad here. When I was in Europe, I found that I only really needed to do my work at the end of the semester for finals. There was no homework or exams throughout the semester, rather just at the end of the term. This would be a huge challenge for someone to come to the US and have homework, projects, and exams each week!
Finally, I found the idea of flight vs. fight to resonate quite well with me. The person in the video described flight as “I will go home in X days” versus fight as “I will resist the urge to want to leave.” One of my friends studied abroad in Hong Kong last year. She was miserable the whole time and I think that is because she was unable to embrace the culture differences and was instead focused on counting down the days until she would be back in the US. I think this is negative mentality to have while living in another country. Whenever I would feel homesick abroad, I never thought about leaving. I embraced the cultural differences and enjoyed learning about a new country. To me, different does not equal wrong.
So far I have found most enjoyment in reading hebrew and writing hebrew. In terms of speaking, I am having trouble speaking confidently. I know this will come with practice, but right now that is a frustration of mine. I have enjoyed learning the vocabulary of my choosing and have enjoyed practicing this on my own and also with Michelle. I have found that we are at a similar level of speaking and understanding and it has been nice working with her.
We recently learned the vocabulary of questions words. Although this would be helpful for an artifact about questions on identity, I have decided to chose an artifact of my family vocabulary instead. I think it is important for me to know the questions words, so we learned them from Emily. That being said, I think I would use my family vocabulary more so I am focusing on mastering that.
I have found Rosetta Stone and YouTube to be the most helpful when trying to learn the question words and learn more about asking about identity. I have relied on these resources to master my pronunciation of these questions. I am finding myself a bit behind in terms of what I have learned so far this semester and so I am continuously adjusting my learning plan.
Here is a recording of me saying the family vocabulary in which I learned.
My family, Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Me, Older (M), and Older (F)
A) My evaluation of my first artifact conversation is one of success! I was very pleased with my pronunciation and with my confidence in speaking. I felt comfortable introducing myself and saying where I am from. I feel as if I would be able to understand this in a conversation with someone in Israel as well which makes me very excited. I think I need to keep practicing without the words in front of me so that it becomes more natural and smoother off of my tongue. All in all, I was very pleased with artifact one.
B) I am also pleased with my progress on my learning goals for weeks 4 and 5. I have learned the vocabulary for my family from my language partner and have decided to use this for another artifact. Because family is so important to me, I thought it would be valuable for me to know these words. I can remember learning these words in Hebrew school growing up and it was a nice feeling being able to remember them after such a long time. I would say that I successfully met my learning goals of learning greetings and vocabulary about my family.
After finally mastering learning the Hebrew alphabet, its sounds, and the sounds of the vowels I would say that I have learned between 40-50 words. This number is much smaller than I originally would have guessed, but again I am at the Kindergarten level of learning. We are reading a book about a Queen who is looking for her villagers to build her a higher chair. It has been fun to learn the vocabulary from this book, but I can’t help but feel like it is not the most useful vocabulary. Because of this, I have tried to learn more vocabulary on my own that I find to be useful. My realistic goal by the end of the semester would be to learn 80-100 words. I think that I have had to lower my expectations of how much vocabulary I can learn in one semester. My vocabulary goals include things like: being able to converse in small talk while I’m in Israel this summer or be able to understand Hebrew while I am there. I think that with these goals in mind, my vocabulary will be more focused on conversations rather than random sentences.
Goals for weeks 4 and 5:
-learn greetings
-learn how to describe my family
Resources and activities to achieve my goals:
-learn the common vocabulary from Emily
-use the YouTalk app to practice greetings
-use Rosetta Stone to learn vocabulary on family and greetings
-watch YouTube clips for greetings
How I will evaluate my success:
I will evaluate my success by practicing my greetings until they sound correct to me and then practice them for Emily. I will have her tell me how my pronunciation is and what I need to work on. I will also show her my family tree which I will be using as an artifact and have her evaluate the correctness of my vocabulary on that.
Here is a recording of my doing greetings, introductions, and describing where I am from.
Shalom (Hello)
Ani Gabbie (I am Gabbie)
Ani mi New Hampshire (I am from New Hampshire)
