Reflection of the Semester
The opportunity to work on my Hebrew written and comprehension skills as well as new and modern Israeli vocabulary has been invaluable to me. I have already gotten so many complements from family and recognition that it is clear that I have benefited from the academic structure of setting a learning plan and working towards goals of bettering my language skills and upgrading my vocabulary according to my academic and social interests.
I think the institution of a learning plan early on was really beneficial to me. I like the organization and motivation that it has provided me in attaining certain levels of comprehension and it has inspired me to keep up not only with foreign policy news, which I study at UR, but specifically Israeli news, or foreign policy from Israeli perspectives.
I am extremely proud of reading an entire novel, getting to read my grandmother's biography in Hebrew, and reading academic and media related articles. While previously I would skim through such readings and try to get the bigger picture, focusing on looking up vocabulary and then applying it in writing has improved my comprehension and speed in reading only in just a few months.
In addition, I would like to mention the benefits of participating in MLC 105 along with the independent study. Although I was not focusing on a new language all together, it was so nice to hear from others how they were tackling their study and get some of the cultural discussions based on the great articles we were reading. I learned a lot about the benefits of immersion, the significance of nonverbal communication, etc., which really made me more in tune to those aspects of Israeli culture, which I almost take for granted because it is so familiar. It was extremely supportive in my work towards creating a culture presentation and the cultural blog posts for MLC 110. I will also take away a lot of what I have learned from other people sharing about their cultures and look forward to applying some of the concepts we talked about when learning more Spanish and Arabic.
Thank you and Shalom
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