Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU)

I was really excited to learn Hebrew when I was planning this trip. But became discouraged and frustrated when the teachers didn't have time to help you one on one and all the home assignments were never graded. THis makes it more difficult to have a continuing lesson in the subject. Also, I don't think there were enough levels that met the students' needs. Many of us that had some previous Hebrew were either put in the lowest or the middle groups were we were either too proficient or not enough to learn anything usable in the class.

When I came to Israeli I only knew some prayer book Hebrew. I came with the main goal of learning to speak Hebrew. There are plenty of opportunities to learn. There are two six-week courses in Hebrew, one in the summer and the other in the winter. During the quarter, Hebrew is offered as a regular language course and is required, unless you are fluent and taking regular university classes in Hebrew. By the time I left Israel, I had moved from the aleph (first) level to the dalet (fourth) level. Now I am doing research that requires reading government debates and newspaper articles from the 1950s, all in Hebrew.

One of the reasons I went to Israel is because I really wanted to be exposed to Hebrew. In and outside the classroom my experience exceeded my expectations. We could apply what we learned in class in many daily life situations, and we got a pretty good exposure to "slang" that we could latter use while hanging out with Israelis.

I began with no knowlege of Hebrew beyond the alphabet, but left with the ability to hold a conversation in Hebrew, as well as with basic knowledge of the grammar. being in beer-sheva, as opposed to tel-aviv or jerusalem is a definite positive in that area.

Living with Israelis really added to the opportunities to learn the language. Although it is tempting to always turn to your American friends because there is no language barrier, oush yourself to hang out with your roomates or other Israelis to further improve your Hebrew communication skills.

I wish more stress would have been placed on language requirements in the classroom. It was also difficult to have personal instructor time when having difficulities. Overall though, it was a good introduction to the language.