hebrew%20artifact%204.m4v

In my third artifact, I made a learning activity. This was a quick quiz game that Emily set up. It was really hard but a very useful learning tool. Basically, she wrote down some words in Hebrew that I needed to define in english, and some words in english that I needed to  translate to Hebrew.

This was a good activity because it used my reading skills, my translation skills, and much more. It made me think it both Hebrew and English which is hard but good.

Emily and I did a lot of activities like this, similar to my quizzes but where I was responsible for translating between Hebrew and English. These proved very valuable as they increased my ability to switch between the two languages. 

My first learning artifact was a quiz that Emily and I did. It proved to be a very effective tool throughout the semester in documenting my learning. Last semester, I didn't really do quizzes, as I didn't feel I was ready for them. Now, however, it was a great way to document my vocabulary and my learning of words and phrases. Emily and I made a deal that if I got above 80% on all of them, I would get a prize at the end of the semester, and I did! Still waiting to find out what my prize is :)

Quizzes are good because they just hold you accountable for what you have learned. They are a good way to mark progress and to make sure you are studying. During the second semester, when I had less frequent quizzes, I definitely did not study as carefully. 

I learned a lot from the cultural presentations. My favorites were the one on sexuality in Korea and the one on Korean food. I have never found myself particularly fascinated with Korean culture, but it seemed really interesting from the presentations!

The sexuality presentation was interesting because it shows how far behind the United States other countries are in their acceptance of LGBTQ rights and general awareness. Some say that the US has a long way to go - and it does - but compared to a lot of the world, we are doing pretty well. I thought the gender-bending movies were fascinating and I like the concept of a gender-bending main character, I just wish it didn't have to demean homosexuality in the process.

I also liked the presentation on Korean food. I like how she tied together the cultural and anthropological reasons for the different foods that are consumed. Plus, I love Korean food - we have a great Korean restaurant in my town and so I found myself familiar with the dishes she was talking about which was really cool!

I want to talk more about food in Israel, some of the things that I didn't detail in my cultural project. I want to talk about the specific types of food they have in Israel.

First of all, I want to talk about the coffee chain Aroma. It is the most incredible thing in the world. It is like starbucks here, it is everywhere and very popular. They also serve lunch too. They have pastries, amazing frozen coffee drinks, great sandwiches.. it is incredible! "Iced Coffee" in Israel is different than it is here, it doesn't have pieces of ice in it, it is frozen and blended. So amazingly good. They also (in fitting with the keeping kosher feel) have a lot of vegetarian options for lunch. I had a cucumber and tomato and cream cheese sandwich that was so good. My mouth is watering remembering it!

Another very popular thing in Israel is salad. They serve salad allllllll the time. Whether it is for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc, it is always at the meal. Salad in Israel is different - there is usually no lettuce, it is just julienned vegetables in some kind of vinegrette. It actually is kind of gross in the mornings.

Finally, in Israel they eat a lot of meat. Meat is served everywhere - on the streets, in fancy restaurants, etc. One of the best kinds of meats is schwarma. Schwarma is a giant spit of meat that is constantly cooking on the street and then when you order it, they shave off a portion for you and put it in pita with other accompaniments. Schwarma is delicious and speaks, I think, to the overall nature of Israeli food. It is not bland, it is all culturally influenced, and it is so good!

In Israel, the military plays a much more important part of culture than it does in the United States. In the US, we  talk about how proud we are of our soldiers, how common it is to display patriotism, etc. However, I believe that we just talk the talk. In Israel, they really walk the walk. They are a beautiful example of a country that has been totally defined by their military, almost as much as they are defined by their Judaism. The military in Israel is life for so many.

Because every student has to go into the military before they go into college, the general public perception of the military as an institution is really high. One of my friends said to me that there is no point in hating something that you have to do, and I think this is a common attitude there. People are placed in different branches of the military after a test, and different branches demand higher scores. Some branches demand 3 years of service or more, while others are less. The military is set up to have something that appeals to everyone. And goodness knows they need the help.

In Israel, they are constantly under threat from some neighboring nation. I believe that this affects the country's culture at a very basic level. They constantly live in fear of an attack, which makes them more ready to pick up and bear arms themselves. This makes sense, because they understand how real the necessity of having an army is. In the United States, we are never really under threat. We get to fight because we want to, because we think there is an ideal worth defending somewhere else. Israel doesn't have that privilege. And this has so changed the country.

Food (what I am doing my cultural project on) in Israel is very important for several reasons, but what I want to talk about today is the way it divides the orthodox from the secular. In Orthodox Judaism, there are very strict codes about what can be eaten. No milk and meat together, no shellfish, no pork, etc. In Israel, much of the country adheres to these standards: some because they want to (the Orthodox) and some because they have to (the secular). What I mean by that is that it is difficult to find food that isn't Kosher. Because the small minority of Orthodox Jews have so much control and power in the country, one of the things they have managed to influence is the food available.

During my time in Israel, I don't think I ever saw "traif" (pork or shellfish) available to eat. At McDonald's, the recipe for chicken nuggets is different than in the US because the coating for the nuggets has to be made without dairy. Fast food restaurants have two entrances - one that goes for a kitchen that cooks meat, and one that goes with a kitchen that cooks dairy. It is so fascinating to me that this small percentage of the population that is Orthodox has managed to control the entire food culture of Israel. It's impressive really!

The secular portion of the population says that it is possible to find traif foods, just difficult. I never saw it when I was there but I'm sure it exists! Israel has some very delicious foods. But it is just fascinating to me that the religious culture of a country can so dramatically impact other important aspects of culture such as food. In Israel, there is often political tension between the ultra-Orthodox and the secular majority of the country. I think that a lot of this has to do with issues such as food, where the small orthodox minority has managed to make changes that affect everyone.

In Israel, the culture regarding business and money transactions is fairly similar to that of the United States. As they are both Westernized nations, they both have decently casual approaches to business deals and business interactions. In Israel, like in the US, top business execs often have meetings, in which the protocol is similar to the United States. Hands are often shaken at the beginning of a meeting, and formalities exchanged. 

Just as in the United States, there are many top big businesses in Israel, especially in the technology/science/defense arenas. Because Israel exists in a dangerous region (for them, as Jews) they have long had to be on the cutting edge of information technology, defense and any other scientific fields that help in the defense industry. They have developed miraculous new aeronautical and spyware systems to help shield  them from missiles.

In Israel, businessmen live the same often extravagant lifestyle that they do in the United States. Business execs are given a healthy salary and often live a very privileged existence. They enjoy other perks of a Western existence: lots of money, fancy cars, etc. However, in Israel, the advanced society often mixes with the Orthodox Jews in an interesting way, causing some old-fashioned customs to mix with the new industrial customs of the Western world. 

Sex.

In every culture, there are appropriate and inappropriate norms regarding physical intimate activity. In Israel, there is a sharp divide between the norms practiced by religious Jews and the actions of the young and liberal Israeli youth. In Judaism, sex is seen as a very significant act, as one that is not to be done lightly and one with extreme consequences. There are holy days of the year on which one should or should not have sex, and explicitly defined is the expectation that one should only be having sex with a spouse.

In Israel, there is a growing number of youth who are secular, and who choose not to adhere to the Jewish cultures regarding sex. Just as in America, Israeli youth treat sex casually. However, they often lose their virginity at a later age, and they have stereotypes about American girls being the type to have sex very casually. I guess I would say that while Israeli youth do have sex more casually than the Orthodox people in Israel, they are not at the level of comfort with random hookups, etc that American teens are.

Hebrew%20final%20presentation%20PP.ppt

Notes and Works Cited:

The second half of the semester has gone well. I think that both Emily and I have figured out what type of work we want to do in regards to Hebrew. I noticed that last semester I didn't do as good of a job working on talking/speaking and pronunciation, so that is something that Emily and I have tried to work on a lot. I am getting really good at spelling, which was one of my goals. I can pretty much guess the spelling for any word in Hebrew - that is a huge accomplishment for me!

I also have become more culturally proficient. What I mean by this is I have gained an ability, I believe, to understand the Israeli culture more than I did before. Through projects such as my cultural project on food, and research on some of the attitudes in Israel that I will post about in my cultural post, I feel more connected to the cultures that speak Hebrew.

I am impressed with my reading skills. I have become very good at reading and I rarely make pronunciation mistakes anymore. I am not sure if this is from just having more than one semester under my belt, or having a background in reading Hebrew from all my years of Hebrew school, but this feels really important. I feel that you can't speak if you don't know how to read, just as I believe that in English, your vocabulary is greatly improved by an ability to be able to read and digest a lot of information. I think it works the same in Hebrew and I am proud of myself for continuing to read and translate.

This has been a tough semester for me, I have been sick a lot and in the hospital 3 different times. I have tried to keep up as best as I can with Hebrew but I think the speaking is what has suffered the most. Even when I am sick, it is easy to look over flashcards and vocabulary, but it is harder to meet with Emily (we have obviously still been meeting) and talk about pronunciation and work on speaking proficiency. 

Finally, I think that I have just become a lot more comfortable with the language. I feel that I have more confidence in speaking, reading and writing and my ability to be comfortable in Israel or another place where Hebrew was spoken (ie a city in America or another country). This was my main goal, to be able to be confident in myself and my Hebrew abilities. I feel that I have reached that! It feels good.

This is me working on my pronunciation by practicing Hebrew prayers.

hebrew%20artifact%204.m4v

For my third artifact, I am posting a learning exercise that Emily and I did. In this exercise, she wrote down some words in English and some words in Hebrew and I had to come up with their meanings. These were all words we had studied before so it worked. It was very helpful, and it basically just felt like a big, ungraded quiz. 

My second artifact is an example of my flashcards. Every week, Emily and I read and I write down all the vocabulary in the paragraph or 2 that we just read. On the front of the flashcard I write the hebrew pronunciation and the hebrew spelling, and on the back I write what it means in English. This has proven to be a very successful exercise for me and has helped me to "store" a lot of words in my brain!

This is a picture of one of my first quizzes. Every week, Emily and I do either 5 or 10 word quizzes and I am  graded on them. I have to get above an 80 on every quiz (which I have done on all except 1!!) or else I have to retake them. This quiz was on prepositions and conjunctions and vocabulary that was used in the book to explain those types of words. I got a 100% on it :) and I also got all the spelling right just by using my knowledge, I didn't have any of it memorized! So this was a great quiz for me.

Because I studied Hebrew last semester, my goals for this semester were very high. I wanted to make a lot of progress in terms of my familiarity with the language and my ability to read fluently. Most of my goals are not specific, but rather mark an improvement in my familiarity with Hebrew and fluency in reading, writing and speaking.

• Goal 1: To begin to read without vowels (as adult Hebrew-speakers do)
• Goal 2: To improve my speech and pronunciation and be more comfortable speaking
• Goal 3: To become more comfortable writing, and be able to spell words by guessing their spelling
• Goal 4: To be able to have a short conversation about a specific topic with my tutor (i.e. food)
• Goal 5: To be able to have a conversation with my best friend in Israel that is partially in Hebrew

To work on my first goal, Emily and I have been doing a lot of reading (with vowels). When we come across words I do not know, I write them down on flashcards and put them into a pile. I look over those flashcards in between meetings to become familiar with the words. When Emily quizzes me on them (I will attach a quiz as an artifact), I write down the answers, doing my best with the spelling and vowel usage. I have found that on my last couple of quizzes, I have stopped including the vowels in my spelling. It is much easier to write without them and I am comfortable enough with Hebrew that I can reread what I have written without the vowels. This feels like a huge accomplishment and one that was a goal of mine, but I still did not think that I would achieve it!

To work on my second goal, Emily and I have been repeating the words that I read in my workbook or on the internet. This is probably the goal that I have done least well on throughout the first part of the semester. We speak the words that I do not know, and I repeat them as I write them down, but we have not spent a lot of time or paid a lot of attention to fluency in speaking. We do not have conversations in Hebrew (although I am definitely not at this level yet), or even try to. For the second half of the semester, my goal is to learn phrases and words in Hebrew that relate to my final project (which will be on food) and know enough that I can organically string them together in a couple of sentences.

To work on my third goal, I write down every word that Emily and I read. I have made flashcards of every single word we have encountered, and I rewrite them and look at the spelling and vowel use. When I have quizzes, it is my job to repeat the words and to spell them correctly. I have found that my spelling is getting much better and I no longer need to memorize the spellings of words, I can just guess using the knowledge that I have - and I am usually right! This is a great feeling.

To work on my fourth goal, I really need to do more. Emily and I have been reading though my workbook and occasionally articles on the internet and that is where I have gotten my vocabulary. We felt that was more organic than trying to focus on specific subjects. However, I do want to be able to have a short conversation about one specific subject, and so I think we are going to start learning more phrases and words related to only one  topic in an attempt to increase my fluency, even if it is just in one subject.

To work on my fifth and final goal, I think all of the work I have been doing this semester culminates in my ability or inability to fulfill this goal. All of the fluency exercises that I use every week will determine if I can comfortably communicate with a native speaker. I am so excited to try this out!! 

Artifact 4 movie

For my last artifact, I just made a short video of myself saying a few introductory sentences in Hebrew. I just said "ma nishma" which means what's up? Then I said "mashlomcha Rachel" which means my name is Rachel. Then I said "me efo at New Hampshire" which means I am from new hampshire.

This is a drawing that I made one day of an army base and I labeled it with some of the words that I knew that were military related. It seems silly, but as I have said, learning about the military is one of my favorite activities and I thought this was fun!

This second artifact is a list of numbers that I wrote down when I was re-learning how to say the numbers. It was helpful for me to have transliteration as well as the Hebrew spelling so I could read it as well as actually know how to say it in English.

I don't know why this posted upside down! I can't change it! Anyways, this is my first artifact. It is my writing out the alphabet in Hebrew. The top row right under the English reads right to left, and then the second row right to left, and so on. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.