Grappling with an entirely new cultural universe. |
In
Israel, thousands of Ethiopian immigrants are learning to read and write for the
first time. They begin not with their native Amharic but Hebrew
You’ve got to make it
“relevant,” insists Meir Peretz, the Israeli Education Ministry official in charge
of adult education, in explaining a new approach to teach Hebrew to thousands of
illiterate Ethiopian immigrants.
Since the early 1980’s, Israel has brought in tens of thousands of Jews from Ethiopia,
including two spectacular airlifts. More than 40,000 arrived in the 1990s and about
100 immigrants continue to trickle in each week.
The government earmarks about $30 million a year to teaching all immigrants Hebrew,
according to Peretz. With the Ethiopians it’s not an easy job, since as many as 90
percent cannot read or write in their native tongue, Amharic. The scale and scope
of the project is unprecedented internationally, whereby “a group of mostly illiterate
people is simultaneously trying to learn to read, write and converse in a foreign
language,” says Peretz.
Peretz realized several years ago that rote learning of vocabulary and grammar simply
didn’t work with most Ethiopian adults enrolled in the compulsory 10 months of government-funded
classes, keeping many from joining the workforce and blending into Israeli society.
Peer
learning
A
major obstacle is the huge cultural difference between the rural lifestyle led by
most of the Ethiopians and the customs of their adoptive Western country, Peretz
says. “If I’m speaking with a native English-speaker, and he doesn’t know what the
Hebrew word is for glasses, then I can say what the word is. When a person doesn’t
even know what glasses are, then I have a cultural problem.”
Peretz has sought to address this problem by putting Amharic-speaking veteran immigrants,
like Isayas Hawaz, into the classroom for at least a quarter of the 25-hour a week
lessons. Hawaz, 25, immigrated four years ago and now helps teachers translate their
lessons into Amharic at an absorption center in Mevassaret Zion, a suburb of Jerusalem.
Hawaz said Peretz’s method made all the difference for him when he was learning Hebrew.
“At first, I wanted to run away from class, I couldn’t make any sense of the alphabet
lessons we were getting. My self-confidence plummeted. Then when they [older Ethiopians]
started translating, it all made sense,” says Hawaz.
A
temple lesson
Peretz’s
curriculum also seeks to pique pupils’ interest by peppering language lessons with
discussions of current events or cultural issues. “It is not a good idea to wait
until someone knows Hebrew to explain what is happening in the country,” he says.
On a hot July afternoon at the Mevasseret centre , teacher Rina Rosler discusses
Tisha Be’Av, a recent Jewish day of fasting marking the anniversary of the destruction
of the second holy temple in the Roman period. She reads her pupils a legend about
the origin of the first temple which recounts that God chose the site because two
quarreling brothers embraced there. She writes the key verbs in Hebrew on the blackboard
and asks students for translations in Amharic. “The temple could only be built at
a site where?” she asks. “...Where there is love,” answers Sana’it Farada, 20, a
newcomer from the Gondar region of Ethiopia.
Yet today that site is the scene of frequent Israeli-Palestinian violence. While
the intifada didn’t come up directly, the relevancy of the discussion wasn’t lost
on at least some of the 14 pupils. After class, teenager Mandefo Mengistu remarks
in Hebrew that “the recent bomb attacks are not good.” While beaming with confidence,
Mengistu’s grasp of the language is exceptional. Noa Navot, director of the Mevasseret
classes, estimates that only half of the pupils with previous education in Ethiopia
end up learning enough Hebrew to land a job. Navot feels the classes should be extended.
“If you plant the seeds and don’t bother to water them, they just go dry,” she says.
Yet according to Peretz, very few immigrants have asked for extended courses. There
is, however, growing interest in a new project to mix language instruction with vocational
training. In the end, says Peretz, patience is required on both sides. |
