BelgoHead Senior Member Belgium Joined 6309 days ago 120 posts - 119 votes Studies: French, English* Studies: Esperanto
| Message 1 of 17 02 February 2008 at 11:30pm | IP Logged |
For any of you that have attended a ulpan in israel, would you mind posting some details about your experences,how long the course was and at what level was you're hebrew by the end of it.
Would you consider yourself basically fluent? Did you do any studying of hebrew outside of the course? Feel free to add any more details but im interested to hear about experences on an Ulpan given their repuation.
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KSaku39 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6836 days ago 30 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 2 of 17 07 May 2008 at 2:18pm | IP Logged |
I had never heard of an 'Ulpan' until reading this post, so I looked it up on wikipedia.
Quote:
The teaching of Hebrew in Israel is in a crisis. A government study has shown that even after five months of intensive Hebrew study at ulpan, sixty percent of new immigrants over the age of thirty cannot read, write or speak Hebrew at a minimum level. The situation amongst the Russian immigrant population is even more dire with seventy percent of immigrants not being able to understand the Hebrew television news |
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It seems their methods aren't as effective as FSI's, or maybe the school just isn't long enough.
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morgansw12 Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6079 days ago 6 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh, Modern Hebrew, French
| Message 3 of 17 09 May 2008 at 10:30am | IP Logged |
From January to June 1982 I spent 5 months at Ulpan Etzion in Jerusalem. The learning was for 5 and a half days per week, 5 hours each day. I had already studied some Hebrew, so was at the lower intermediate stage. Teaching was done solely through Hebrew (without translating) and classes were of mixed nationalities and languages. We used various materials, plus a lot of practice and also things like songs. There were also excursions to archaeological and historical sites.
At the end of the 5 months I was pretty fluent, although I continued my studies afterwards. I was also able to read and write at a good standard - and was able to pass a job interview and get a decent job. My wife was also at the ulpan, but started from a beginner's level - after the 5 months she was fluent. My experience in Israel also was that provided people take their studies seriously, the ulpan is a great immersion experience and will easily lead to fluency. Some of the people I knew were elderly (i.e. 80+) and were successful.
BTW, I had a neighbour in Israel who had Down's Syndrome and he could manage three languages - Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew.
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endation Triglot Newbie United States mattgrabermusic.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6305 days ago 28 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English*, Modern Hebrew, Spanish Studies: French, German, Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin
| Message 4 of 17 12 May 2008 at 1:03pm | IP Logged |
I took classes at Ulpan Gordon in Tel Aviv for a little more than a year. I did full-time classes 5 days a week for a while, and then afterwards did more advanced classes that met just 2 evenings a week. Although I usually prefer not to have language classes with large groups of people, I really did enjoy these classes. The teachers I had were really good, and since the students came from different parts of the world the teaching was pretty much all in Hebrew. I improved a lot while I took these classes, but I also studied on my own and tried to live my life completely in Hebrew while I was living in Israel. There were some students in the Ulpan that never really progressed. If you focus and put in the effort to learn, though, then the classes are definitely worth the time.
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kumori Newbie United States Joined 6833 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 5 of 17 17 May 2008 at 7:04am | IP Logged |
How the heck do you get into these programs? Are they expensive?
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morgansw12 Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6079 days ago 6 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh, Modern Hebrew, French
| Message 6 of 17 17 May 2008 at 8:10am | IP Logged |
To live in, you have to be an immigrant to Israel, but it is also possible to study there as an external student (although you have to arrange your own accommodation). Here is the website: http://www.jafi.org.il/aliyah/abscenters/abscentlist/ulpanet zion/index.asp#cul and also: http://www.wzo.org.il/en/programs/view.asp?id=1
Mike.
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Lemanensis Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Switzerland hebrew.ecott.ch Joined 5930 days ago 73 posts - 77 votes Speaks: French*, English*, German, Spanish, Swedish Studies: Modern Hebrew
| Message 7 of 17 30 September 2008 at 4:18pm | IP Logged |
Does anyone know of any 2 or 3 week Ulpan programmes? I'm in full-time employment and cannot get away for several months...
Any help greatly appreciated.
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yael Triglot Newbie Israel Joined 5877 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Modern Hebrew
| Message 8 of 17 30 October 2008 at 5:23am | IP Logged |
There generally aren't such short ulpan programmes.
The idea of the ulpan is to teach new immigrants the language so that they can integrate into society. Without
knowing Hebrew, it's not possible to live properly as part of Israeli society - you can do it but you will be on the
margins.
The ulpans are also open to tourists although for a fee.
The reason there is no short programmes, therefore, is that it's not possible to teach a language in such a short
time period!
You can have a private teacher of course. It would not be hard to arrange.
The University offers a summer intensive ulpan that lasts 8 weeks. It's very expensive though.
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