The students of the Orthodox yeshiva day school are regularly improving their Hebrew language skills by engaging in conversation with Israeli teachers for half of every day in full Hebrew immersion classes and activities. Beginning Hebrew immersion learning at the earliest level (age 2), BPY places at least one teacher in every early childhood classroom, one of whom speaks exclusively in Hebrew, and one in English. Rabbi Zucker says, “the successes of the Hebrew immersion curriculum are not surprising. You can go into any classroom and have a conversation with students at very different grade levels and they’ll understand and respond in Hebrew.”
However, the challenges that they struggle with are different from the ones that a non-immersion school might see. There are students who have language-based learning challenges that manifest in foreign language acquisition by immersion in a way that they wouldn’t if the student learned the language traditionally. There is also the anxiety that parents feel when their children have struggles--and though research shows that immersion is wildly beneficial, it certainly isn’t without struggle from the child’s perspective. Starting this month, in order to enhance the day school’s language immersion program and learn from how other immersion schools handle these challenges, BPY is partnering with schools and programs in the area such as a French language school in Teaneck, NJ, a German immersion program in New York, NY and others to form a foreign language immersion cohort that will meet several times a year to discuss best practices and dissect failures. To learn more about the BPY school and Hebrew Immersion program, check out some of their digital materials below! |
