Omer Genosar
Final Reflection
I have really grown as a language learner over this past semester and year. As I stated before, I am currently taking Arabic at the 100 level and Hebrew through this self-directed learning course. The difference between the two types of learning are night and day. For my Arabic class, I have been trying to learn hundreds of vocabulary words while putting together and understanding all of the grammar rules necessary. My learning has been broad and what is taught is honestly very spread out and not very concentrated. Meanwhile, for Hebrew I have been diligently working on one main goal: to expand my conversational speaking skills. I have put all of my energy into filling my speaking needs; this means that any times I have words that I do not know, I do not memorize them but instead just look them up until the next time I stumble across them. Speaking and having conversations has been my path to learning vocabulary. I feel as though, contrary to my initial beliefs, the vocab that I keep looking up is not as wide ranged as in Arabic class. Instead, the words I do not know and use often have two categories: political words and more complicated adjectives. The first category is easy to explain, I am interested in politics and I have found a need to be able to explain my political viewpoints/issues in a Hebrew conversation. The second part is a little harder to explain, and where I have found more difficulties. A good example of this is the word subjective; I used to say – it is only what you think (ze rak ma shehata choshev). If I now want to say that is subjective I would say – ze eeshee (personal) or soobyektivi (subjective). Of course the Hebrew word is noticeably based off the English word and has no real Hebrew root, but regardless of that, these are the type of words that I find myself needed to fill in my vocabulary. Knowing Hebrew beforehand is of course very useful in acquiring a language, but I believe that the step to get to the next level is just as difficult as the process that one learns in a 100 level language class. Regardless, I plan on continually honing my Hebrew skills hopefully for the rest of my life.
My favorite learning activity when I was doing the PowerPoints. My first one was on McDonalds in Israel, the second on the Hebrew language’s history, and the third on the May holidays in Israel. All three were really fun for me because I was able to learn more about my culture and I enjoyed being able to connect more with my Israeli roots. Maybe if I was doing a different culture, such as Korean, I would be a bit more disengaged; however, overall I think the PowerPoints really opened my eyes other cultures as well as my own. Additionally, my favorite learning journals were the culture shock based one and the early one on Figuring Foreigners Out, I really enjoyed the viewpoints that both introduced (or more accurately, confirmed) to me.
Just to touch upon my progress of my learning plan as well, I think that I have a ways to go when it comes to finishing my overall goals of being fluent. I have made great gains when it comes to my reading and conversational skills and so I feel as though I have achieved most of my specific goals for the learning plan. I have increased confidence in my conversational skills in Hebrew and I feel much more secure with speaking. On the reading aspect of my learning plan, I have fallen a bit short of my initial goals, but I did succeed in familiarizing myself more and more with non-punctuated readings. I feel as though I have finally transitioned from needing the Hebrew diacritics to leaning on the a lot less and understanding words without them. Overall, I feel as though I reached my goals for the learning plan and I am very satisfied with the results.
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