Bilingualism in Israel

I’m tired of all the negative news about Israel and believe that it makes sense to promote the positive developments. Yes, a lot of bad shit is happening there but there is good stuff, too. See this news item, for instance:

Jewish pupils in Israel will be required to learn Arabic from the age of six, under a proposed bill aimed at improving relations between the two communities. Hebrew and Arabic are both official languages in Israel. The vast majority of Israeli Arabs, who make up a fifth of the country’s 8.3 million people, speak Hebrew but only a small fraction of Israeli Jews can speak Arabic.

Bilingualism is always a wonderful thing. Did you know, for instance, that bilingual kids show better results in all disciplines, including math and physics?

Also, speaking a language makes one more integrated into the culture associated with it. Of course, this measure will not bring miraculous results of any kind but it’s a step in a good direction.

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49 responses to “Bilingualism in Israel”

danmillerinpanama

October 30, 2015

That’s an encouraging step by Israel. However, Palestinian incitement to murder Israeli Jews and to eliminate Israel seems unlikely to cease or even to diminish because of it. How about some encouraging steps from Palestinian leaders?

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015

All of those so-called leaders are deeply useless. If there is any hope for peace, it resides in the people themselves. At least, that’s how it seems to me. I’m not an authority on the region, of course.

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1. el
  
  October 30, 2015
  
  \ If there is any hope for peace, it resides in the people themselves.
  
  If children are raised since birth among horrible incitement, how can they bring any hope as adults? I believe that “Peace begins with education.” Googled and found this:
  
  Palestinian Authority Education
  A Recipe for Hate and Terror
  http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=15264
  
  I think this may be a step in the right direction:
  
  US cutting aid to Palestinians by $80m in reported ‘message’ to Abbas. Annual economic assistance to drop from $370m to $290m amid rising Congressional criticism over Palestinian incitement, al-Monitor reports.
  http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-to-reportedly-cut-aid-to-palestinians-by-80-m-in-message-to-abbas/
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    October 30, 2015
    
    “I think this may be a step in the right direction: US cutting aid to Palestinians by $80m in reported ‘message’ to Abbas. Annual economic assistance to drop from $370m to $290m amid rising Congressional criticism over Palestinian incitement, al-Monitor reports.”
    
    Yes, because starving and desperate people are so much more difficult to incite to violence. Makes every possible sense. In an upside-down universe.
    
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    1. el
      
      October 30, 2015
      
      \ Yes, because starving and desperate people are so much more difficult to incite to violence.
      
      I don’t want their funds to be cut since I agree with your point.
      
      I do want some pressure to be applied on PA to make Abbas stop inciting and to lessen incitement in their education system. What people learn at a young age usually stays with them forever. Education is the thing to concentrate on to have any hope for future.
      
      \ I don’t remember anything at all from the classes on math and sciences I took at school.
      
      You are wrong. Can you count? Know what a percent is and can calculate 25% from 200 dollars? Understand a simple graph? Do you know that our planet is round and not flat? Everybody remembers something.
      
      As the matter stands now, children in middle school (7-9 grades) already must choose a second foreign language in addition to English. At my former school we had Arabic or French to choose from. Then they choose whether to continue this second language in high school or not. (I didn’t and now regret it.) In my opinion, it’s enough and saying “Arabic from age 6” is a populist step. It would be much more useful to spend this children’s effort and state’s money on learning English and/or math better.
      
      The one use of learning Arabic from age 6 I can think of is for IDF (especially special units) to have more Arabic knowing people to choose from.
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        “Can you count? Know what a percent is and can calculate 25% from 200 dollars? Understand a simple graph? Do you know that our planet is round and not flat?”
        
        First of all, counting is arithmetic and not math. And I knew all this long before I went to school. Except for the graph which i still find more confusing than a phrase in Chinese.
        
        “It would be much more useful to spend this children’s effort and state’s money on learning English and/or math better.”
        
        If the goal is to facilitate their eventual emigration to North America, then sure enough.
        
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        el
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        \ If the goal is to facilitate their eventual emigration to North America, then sure enough.
        
        🙂 🙂 You are very funny here, but wrong.
        
        The current goal of our ministry of education is to increase the number of high school students who study math at 5-point level. (There are 3, 4 and 5 point levels.) Special programs giving more hours of math in high school are being implemented this year. But I think many children don’t have a chance already in the seventh grade of the middle school because of not knowing the elementary school material well enough. It is important to invest in giving young children good basis in math.
        
        I linked the good news of Israel being in the fifth place on the Bloomberg Innovation Index this year. To keep innovating, we need educated people, knowing both math and English, the international language one must know to follow and share technological and scientific developments.
        
        With the world becoming more post-old nation state and more interconnected, knowing English is a must. For instance, programmers and engineers may need to read English books and websites. I suppose it’s true for doctors too.
        
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Ellie

October 30, 2015

Now if only we could get bilingualism in U.S. schools!

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015

Ah, that would be such a dream come true!

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October 30, 2015

More nice news (look at the last quoted paragraph):

Israeli satellite to supply sub-Saharan Africa with free internet
A joint venture by Israeli company Spacecom, Facebook, and French satellite provider Eutelsat aims to bring internet access to millions of people who aren’t currently connected.
[…]
Alluding to Israel as leading international technological developer, Arnon said that Facebook’s choice of the AMOS-6 for its new initiative reflects the quality of the satellite and demonstrates confidence in Spacecom and in Israeli technology. “We are looking forward and are proud to take part in contributing to the success of this tremendous venture,” he said.

In 2015, Israel was ranked fifth place on the Bloomberg Innovation Index which tracks the highest levels of the world’s research and development. This marked a huge climb from 30th place last year, setting Israel ahead of the UK, France and the US.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4717977,00.html

As for Bilingualism, Jewish pupils already study English in elementary school from forth grade (nine years old) at the latest. I checked and found in a Hebrew article that some schools begin teaching English earlier, even from the first grade, because of pressure from parents. However, one professor in the article said that it’s better to wait teaching foreign languages till children reach a certain level in their mother tongue.

I don’t think adding a little Arabic would be of any benefit. To really learn a language, especially one as difficult as Arabic, many hours of study are necessary. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time and my state’s money. For instance, I studied French in the middle school, but on a very low level. Now I don’t remember French ABC. Seriously.

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015
“I don’t think adding a little Arabic would be of any benefit. To really learn a language, especially one as difficult as Arabic, many hours of study are necessary. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time and my state’s money. For instance, I studied French in the middle school, but on a very low level. Now I don’t remember French ABC. Seriously.”
- According to this logic, no education at all is necessary. I don’t remember anything at all from the classes on math and sciences I took at school. So what, let’s cancel math?
“However, one professor in the article said that it’s better to wait teaching foreign languages till children reach a certain level in their mother tongue.”
- He’s an idiot.
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Dreidel

October 30, 2015

Mandatory foreign language courses are worthless unless the student plans to use the new language for reading or communication outside the classroom. If that sounds cynical — sorry, but it’s demonstratively true.

In America, practically all colleges require students to take two years of a foreign language to get a bachelor’s degree. That means many thousands of Americans with college degrees have at one time in their life managed to pass two years’ worth of a foreign language course.

Guess how many of these thousands of Americans can speak a single sentence in that language two years after they graduate, and then speak and use nothing but English for the rest of their long lives? The answer is close to ZERO.

Personal anecdote: I had to get a bachelor’s degree to enter medical school, thus had to choose a foreign language, and for some reason chose German. It turned out that I enjoyed the courses so much that I majored in the language, taking it for all four years of undergraduate college — and actually using it during summer jobs at a travel agency. Since then I’ve spent five years in Europe and speak German fluently. But I am a rare exception in this case. Over the years, I’m met several of my old German-class classmates, and not one of them can speak the language, and couldn’t care less — in their lives, they don’t need it.

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1. el
  
  October 30, 2015
  
  \ Mandatory foreign language courses are worthless unless the student plans to use the new language for reading or communication outside the classroom.
  
  I agree. Israelis watch movies and read books in English, listen to songs, etc. I don’t think they would do it in Arabic too if this law passes.
  
  I am against this new Arabic law since there is a real need in Israel to spend money on decreasing the number of students in a class and it’s not done because of lack of money:
  
  Classrooms in Israel are the most crowded in the West, a study by TheMarker has found.
  […]
  Israel had an average of 26.7 students per classroom, compared with an OECD average of 22. Only China, Chile and Japan have elementary school classrooms that are more crowded than Israel’s.
  http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/israeli-classrooms-are-most-crowded-in-the-western-world.premium-1.507564
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    October 30, 2015
    
    “I am against this new Arabic law since there is a real need in Israel to spend money on decreasing the number of students in a class and it’s not done because of lack of money”
    
    We all know this is not the real reason.
    
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    1. el
      
      October 30, 2015
      
      \ We all know this is not the real reason.
      
      What is the real reason? Nobody cares enough?
      
      As I said, our ministry of education has begun investing more in math this year.
      
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      1. Clarissa
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        “What is the real reason?”
        
        To be blunt: you don’t like Arabs.
        
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2. Clarissa
  
  October 30, 2015
  “Mandatory foreign language courses are worthless unless the student plans to use the new language for reading or communication outside the classroom.”
  
  I have to say, I find it quite bizarre when people try to inform a person who’s only been teaching foreign languages for a quarter of a century about the uses of foreign language learning.
  
  “Guess how many of these thousands of Americans can speak a single sentence in that language two years after they graduate, and then speak and use nothing but English for the rest of their long lives? The answer is close to ZERO.”
  
  Once again, do you remember what I do for a living? You are completely wrong. But that doesn’t even matter. Active language learning does retreat into a passive state after a while but that means absolutely nothing about the usefulness of language learning.
  
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  1. el
    
    October 30, 2015
    
    \ Active language learning does retreat into a passive state after a while but that means absolutely nothing about the usefulness of language learning.
    
    Have you ever written about its usefulness?
    
    A serious question: if I never learn French again, has studying it contributed something? What exactly?
    
    May be, you could write a post about the uses of foreign language learning?
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      October 30, 2015
      
      There is a bibliography on this that’s a mile long. I don’t have it on this computer but I can post it from the office whenever I get there. There are certain brain functions that are developed as a result of language learning, especially when it’s done earlier in life. And after retirement, it can have extremely beneficial health uses, as well.
      
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      1. el
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        \ There is a bibliography on this that’s a mile long.
        
        I understand. But the same is true for a development of a nation state and you could put a few important things in a concise and interesting fashion on your blog. 🙂
        
        My point was that children already study a second language – English, so they already get those benefits.
        
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        Clarissa
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        “But the same is true for a development of a nation state and you could put a few important things in a concise and interesting fashion on your blog.”
        
        Yes, because it’s the research that I’m doing at home.
        
        “My point was that children already study a second language – English, so they already get those benefits.”
        
        The same bibliography has research on how trilingualism is even better than bilingualism.
        
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  2. Dreidel
    
    October 30, 2015
    
    “Once again, do you remember what I do for a living? You are completely wrong.”
    
    No, I’m not. What you do for a living affects the handful of students that you come in contact with. It has nothing at all to do with the effectiveness of language studies in most American colleges.
    
    For the VAST MAJORITY of American students who are forced to take two years of a foreign language that they will NEVER use outside the classroom, those mandatory classes are a total waste of time. (I know that all educators like to think that their efforts make a lasting difference in their students’ lives — but alas, that isn’t always true.)
    
    Do you remember who I am? I’ve been an American for seven decades (spent eight non-continuous years overseas), and I know my countrymen, and American culture, well enough to know what I’m talking about here.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      October 30, 2015
      
      “What you do for a living affects the handful of students that you come in contact with. It has nothing at all to do with the effectiveness of language studies in most American colleges.”
      
      Logic has left the building once again. The point is that I’m qualified to speak about it in the way you aren’t. What you did for a living only affected the handful of patients you came in contact with but that doesn’t mean I get the right to lecture you on what meds to prescribe for mental illness.
      
      “For the VAST MAJORITY of American students who are forced to take two years of a foreign language that they will NEVER use outside the classroom, those mandatory classes are a total waste of time.”
      
      This statement is the exact equivalent of me lecturing you on psychiatry without ever taking a single course on the subject.
      
      “I’ve been an American for seven decades (spent eight non-continuous years overseas), and I know my countrymen, and American culture, well enough to know what I’m talking about here.”
      
      And this is the same as if I said, “I’ve been a woman for 39 years, so I know way better than you which meds to prescribe to women.”
      
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      1. Dreidel
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        “This statement is the exact equivalent of me lecturing you on psychiatry without ever taking a single course on the subject.”
        
        I’m not lecturing you on anything, Clarissa, and would definitely never try to tell you how to teach.
        
        I’m simply making a general statement on the effectiveness of mandatory foreign language courses forced on liberal arts college students who couldn’t care less about learning the language and who will never use it after graduation, and telling you that I’ve lived long enough to see how blissfully monolingual most of my countrymen remain.
        
        You have made numerous statements in your blog about how bad you think the general state of American medicine is, and how psychiatry is, to put it mildly, not helpful — and with few exceptions, I haven’t taken any of those comments personally, and have never accused you of lecturing me on my area of expertise.
        
        We just have a difference of opinion on some things. Not a big deal. 🙂
        
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        Clarissa
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        People who haven’t been teaching languages for as long or longer as I have are not entitled to an opinion on language learning on my blog. I don’t know how to make this statement any clearer. A right to an opinion should be earned.
        
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        Dreidel
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        “People who haven’t been teaching languages for as long or longer as I have are not entitled to an opinion on language learning on my blog. I don’t know how to make this statement any clearer. A right to an opinion should be earned.”
        
        Oh, come on — you give opinions on everything under the sun, some of which are definitely outside your area of knowledge, and nobody says you shouldn’t. (Although you often get, and thankfully tolerate, feedback that disagrees with your point.)
        
        Your blog has always — or so I’ve thought — encouraged open opinions. I hope you aren’t changing those rules.
        
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        Clarissa
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        On one of the online forums (in the times when I still participated), there was this fellow who tried to inform me about my husband. Whom he obviously never met. When I responded that I didn’t find his opinion very useful, he accused me of intolerance and of violating his freedom of speech.
        
        There are subjects where I welcome questions but not opinions, unless one proves that s/he has the requisite qualifications. The subjects are:
        
        USSR;
        The events in Ukraine and Russia;
        Hispanic literature;
        Language learning;
        And most importantly, my husband. 🙂
        
        Everything else is open to debate.
        
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      2. Dreidel
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        “Language learning; And most importantly, my husband.”
        
        Well, I think people who are multilingual have the requisite qualification to offer an opinion on language learning.
        
        But I will NEVER give an opinion about your husband! 🙂
        
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        Clarissa
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        What about people who are multi-husbanded? Or those who have been husbands multiple times? That might qualify them. 🙂
        
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        Dreidel
        
        October 30, 2015
        
        “What about people who are multi-husbanded? Or those who have been husbands multiple times? That might qualify them.”
        
        Or multiple wives, perhaps. These people would definitely be qualified to speak on the GENERAL topic of spouses — but not on your specific husband N. 🙂
        
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Evelina Anville

October 30, 2015

Gosh. Clarissa posted one slightly hopeful story from a war torn country whose residents are absolutely intent on killing each other– a story that suggests that maybe, just maybe, the residents will stop seeing each other like animals for one tiny moment. And commenters still manage to find something ugly to focus on. Very disappointing response to this story. (But I agree thoroughly with Ellie.)

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el

October 30, 2015

\ one slightly hopeful story from a war torn country whose residents are absolutely intent on killing each other

As an Israeli, I wanted to comment that I don’t feel as if I live in “a war torn country.” Syria and Donbass region in Ukraine are this way, but not Israel.

I do live surrounded by enemy states and populations, but it’s a different matter.

Palestinians in PA and in Gaza are not residents of my country. Palestinians from East Jerusalem, who commit many of terror acts, won’t be Israeli citizens / residents after foundation of Palestinian state either, I believe. Now they are called Israeli residents since Israel doesn’t want to give territory, especially not for free.

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015
“And commenters still manage to find something ugly to focus on. Very disappointing response to this story. ”
- Yes, I have a feeling that it would be enough for me just to publish an empty post with the word “Israel” in the title, and many people will just go off on their usual spiel that has little to do with Israel itself.
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bwcarey

October 30, 2015

no language can imitate or fake real love, real actions

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Barbara

October 30, 2015

I am one of those Americans who took three years of high school French and thought I remembered next to nothing. It turns out that I actually remember quite a bit. My son is in his second year of high school French and I could do almost all of his homework for him without any trouble at all, if I wanted to (obviously I don’t). Of course, remembering something by recognizing it (which is what I am doing with French) is different from pulling something out without a prompt. That is why multiple choice test questions are so much easier than questions requiring short written answers.

I’ve long recognized that the value of my French education was not that I learned to speak French (which I didn’t). It is that I learned a little about language. I learned a lot about grammar — who knew that there were so many tenses? I learned what an idiom was — for example, French people “have” hunger and warm, we English-speakers “are” hungry and warm. And that in turn gave me an inkling of how cultures can differ, and how much we are shaped by how our culture presents the world to us. Those are not small things.

In contrast to French, I remember next to NO math. I haven’t been able to check math homework for at least five years now (fortunately for my son, his dad is a math genius). Should I not have taken algebra and geometry?

As for Israel requiring all students to take Arabic, I can only say I am surprised this is a new development, how can a nation have an official language that is not taught? Though when I was in Israel fifteen years ago, it did strike me that there was more in English than in Arabic (signs, etc.) Well, better late than never as they say. I would like to think it is a lovely gesture in and of itself but fear that the commentator above who said it is so members of the military will better understand what their FELLOW CITIZENS are saying is correct.

I have long heard that evidence of the Arab world’s hate for Israel is reflected in the fact that their school children are given maps where there is no Israel. That is wrong of them, needless to say, but the next time anyone here sees a Jewish National Fund pushke, look to see if there is a Palestine, or any evidence that the West Bank and Gaza might be in a separate category than say the Negev.

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015

Thank you, great comment. This is precisely what I’m saying about the value of education. I’m very well-aware, for instance, that the overwhelming majority of my students doesn’t remember the differences between realism and naturalism a couple of years after graduation. But so what? The goal of my being in the classroom with them is SO not to have them remember things like these for the rest of their lives.

I met a student from years ago who told me that my course changed his life and it was a transformative experience like few others. And then he confessed that he couldn’t remember the name of a single author we read in that course. I responded that it was OK, that was precisely my goal.

Gosh, if a student comes out of my Elementary Spanish II with zero capacity of speaking Spanish 10 years later but with a memory of experiencing a different culture from the inside and enjoying that experience, then I have achieved my goal. I don’t expect anybody to be fluent after a year, that would be insane. But I want students hear the word “Spanish” and not have the TV – suggested mental image of raping hordes crossing the border but, instead, to have a memory of us having a blast, laughing, singing and acting in the classroom. That is my goal, and I believe it’s a mighty important one.

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Alex

October 30, 2015

And what, this is going to make everything better, solve everything, bring lasting peace? Don’t be naive. It’s not nearly as easy as this law wants to make it seem.

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015

You’ve got to be kidding me.

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djiril

October 30, 2015

Have you heard of this place?
http://wasns.org

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015

Sounds really great. The real hope for the future lies in these kinds of initiatives. It’s going to be really hard because people will need to boundary up against the flood of dehumanizing propaganda on both sides. But this is the real hope.

Thank you for the great link.

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1. Ke
  
  October 30, 2015
  
  There’s also this:
  
  https://www.handinhandk12.org/
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    October 30, 2015
    
    Wow, this is really going to be a feel-good thread. I’m very glad, thank you!
    
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October 30, 2015

Peace education programs thrive amid violence
Peres Center for Peace reports increase in demand for joint Jewish and Arab educational programs amid concerns that recent wave of terror may lead to rift in Israeli society.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4715022,00.html

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Clarissa

October 30, 2015

I’m glad there are people who work on such initiatives. This is a really patriotic thing to do.

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cliff arroyo

October 31, 2015

A practical problem, courses for non-native speakers always start from Modern Standard Arabic which no one speaks.
Arabs start speaking a local dialect and then in school learn (while most fail to learn) the standard which is very weird and artificial.
They should start with the local spoken version which will allow them to talk to people on the ground.

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J. Otto Pohl

October 31, 2015

I believe due to its media dominance that Egyptian Arabic is replacing MSA as the default equivalent of Hochdeutsch. My understanding is that Palestinian Arabic is only really distant from the North African dialects like Algerian due to the Berber influence on the latter.

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1. cliff arroyo
  
  October 31, 2015
  
  “Egyptian Arabic is replacing MSA as the default equivalent of Hochdeutsch” It used to be that way but more popular media is now produced in MSA.
  
  Satellite TV was apparently a game changer in exposing most speakers to other dialects often and deeply enough so that they could communicate with each other wihtout resorting to MSA (and they never used Egyptian as a lingua franca AFAIK).
  
  A former colleague from Iraq said he could understand Egyptian and everything east of it but Maghrebi (starting around Libya) was opaque.
  
  Arabic speakers inevitably praise MSA to the skies and lament that more people don’t speak it more often….. while doing everything they can to not use it themselves.
  
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Sarah Brodsky (@sarahbrodsky)

November 1, 2015

I was kind of surprised this is news because I know someone in Israel whose kids go to a religious Jewish school and they still have Arabic class from seventh to twelfth grade. Of course, it is ideal to start earlier than that, but I was under the impression they already learned it at some levels.

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Clarissa

November 1, 2015

I’m sure some kids do but the measure aims to include everyone.

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