Ulpan Gordon Gets Tough: Now what?
This post was originally written on July 3rd, 2008 at americanbabble. Do you have a personal ulpan story to share? Send me a message at my contact page or write me at contact@ulpangordon.com
Hitting the wall
The last few weeks have been mentally taxing for me. Our regular teacher at Ulpan Gordon went to Barcelona for a week with her husband (As an American, it’s seems like an excessive and exotic week long vacation.) and we were left with a substitute. I had become accustomed to my usual instructor who was with us from the start. The new instructor approached the classroom from a completely different teaching style. She was a little too hyper and disorganized for my taste. It left me feeling extremely stressed and lost even though I was admittedly stressed before, at least I knew how to react to my first teacher.
When my instructor came back from vacation, I thought the stars would align themselves again. Unfortunately, nothing felt the same inside the classroom.
Most of the people who originally started the course with me appeared to have left for one reason or another. They were replaced with people who had an infinitely higher grasp of the Hebrew language than myself. I felt like I was left in the dust.
Don’t be so hard on yourself
From day one, I’ve been very hard on myself with this course. I came in barely knowing that the language is written from right to left left along any of the letters or pronunciation. I overcame this handicap (with MANY after hour study sessions) after the first month and am IMMENSELY thrilled that I can read and write Hebrew now. Unfortunately, my comprehension and conversational skills are ridiculously stifled. (Mostly due to an absurd apprehension I’ve developed from attempting to speak Hebrew with native speakers. I’m still trying to figure out how to overcome that mess.)
Sitting in class this last month, I’ve watched most of the class breeze through lessons, memorize verbs and nouns within a few moments, and have full conversations in Hebrew with the instructor. I thought to myself, “Am I really so stupid that these people can memorize and function with relative ease in Hebrew and I can’t?”. I’ve been stressing over the progress of other people and not just focusing on my personal abilities. It’s a very unproductive mentality to have.
You’re not learning for anyone but yourself
I finally took a moment to analyze the situation and realized I was doomed to feel this way before it even started. A majority of my classmates had already taken Hebrew courses before and several had taken this exact course twice already. Not to mention, the three month course (4 days a week) is an accelerated version of the five month course (5 days a week). They say that you can enter the classroom without knowing any Hebrew and still succeed. But at what cost? Your success is at the cost of being overwhelmed and becoming a flaming ball of anxiety.
I’ve become very attached to the language and have immeasurable joy climbing the ladder of understanding. Now that I have a basic understanding of how it functions, I’m going to turn it into a puzzle to assemble rather than a race. I’m excited to see how this change of focus may help me during the next month of study.
Focus on a solid Hebrew foundation
The lesson learned here is that if you’re a beginner to the Hebrew language, focus on understanding the basics. Lay a solid foundation down for yourself and remember that you are learning for yourself, not for anyone else. If you can graduate immediately from Aleph to Bet, bravo! If you find yourself needing to take Aleph 2 or 3 times over again, so be it! Don’t be so hard on yourself, just breathe, and all the pieces will begin to fit together.
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6 Responses to “Ulpan Gordon Gets Tough: Now what?”
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Fabulous post, hope you learnt lots and would love to hear more!
I am learning Hebrew by myself in Israel at the moment and it is rather tricky. I would love to go on an ulpan but I have only 2 spare weeks and am a tourist so I think it is impossible to find a course. Know what you mean about talking to Israeli’s in Hebrew but I am persevering and getting somewhere with it!!
@ Rose
You’re learning by yourself? That really MUST be tricky. It’s definitely easier to soak things in with other classmates around and also nice to get explanations about things like gender and tenses. You must be a very disciplined person to do it alone.
I’m still at a rudimentary level though. I came to Gordon not knowing any of the letters, numbers, anything! So my confidence is really low when it comes to scratching together a conversation. But you’re right! We must persevere!
You’re also right by saying that it might not be worth it to study for only 2 weeks. Ulpan Gordon would let you come into a class for two weeks, no problem. But they require a minimum payment of a full month. I don’t know if it will be worth it for you to pay for a full month and only use 2 weeks of it.
What level of Hebrew are you? Have you studied before? Are you planning on coming back to Israel after your tourist visa expires?
I found that there was not enough emphasis on conversation. The teacher was always correcting us in mid-sentence. After I finished Ulpan Aleph, I discovered so many BASIC everyday words which were simply not taught.
The teacher knew Russian and patronized the Russians by speaking to the in Russian and translating new words for them. The Ulpan method is to draw pictures on the board and do pantomimes until the class understands. There are too many people who speak too many languages to base Hebrew learning on another language.
I am not just talking about Gordon. All government Ulpans have to use the same guidelines. I have found that the most successful way to teach a language is to feed the students practical dialogs in the beginning, rather than so much emphasis on grammar and the verb “binyanim”.
Also it doesn’t help that when the native Israelis hear just a trace of an English speakers accent, the say, “oh, you can speak English”. To which I reply,
?? ??? ???? ???? ???? ???? ??????, ??? ??? ????? ?????. ?? ??? ?? ?????? ????? ?????? ?????, ?? ??? ?? ???? ?????!
Sorry for the question marks which show that this website does not support Hebrew.
What I said was, Yes, I know I CAN speak English, it is my native language after all. But I prefer to speak Hebrew. If I don{t practice and hear it, I will never learn it.
@ Mark
I’ve heard that from quite a few other people as well that it’s difficult to practice Hebrew on the streets. I suppose it’s simply a matter of will between the two people conversing. For a very beginner who has zero confidence to begin with, then it’s near impossible.
My number one pet peeve is being constantly interrupted when trying to form a full sentence in Hebrew (mostly for corrections to my accent). I found this to consistently happen with my Ulpan teacher and local Israelis.
P.S. I’ve been trying to upgrade my site to support Hebrew letters this last week. It will be fixed soon enough. It seems silly having a site about studying Hebrew when it doesn’t even display Hebrew script, eh?
@ Mark
Hebrew characters are now fixed!
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