Why Write If You Don't Have To: A Rationale for Writing in the Hebrew Language Classroom

Volume 9, No.3 Spring 1991 WHY WRITE IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO: A RATIONALE FOR WRITING IN THE HEBREW LANGUAGE CLASSROOM1 Adina Ofek Adina Ofek chairs the Hebrew Department at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and teaches in the Department of Jewish Education. Her research interests are second language acquisition , teaching methods and learning strategies in reading comprehension, and the preparation of educators for day schools and synagogue schools. From 1988 to 1990 she has served on the ACTFL committee that wrote the guidelines for proficiency in Hebrew, and is currently a member of the Education Testing Service committee writing the Hebrew language achievement test. 83 There is a consensus among teachers and researchers alike that writing is the most difficult and the last skill to be acquired even in the natural continuum of first language acquisition. Teachers tackle the question of how to teach writing, but despite their efforts and despite the various theories that have been developed in this area only a small fraction of native speakers achieves mastery in writing. Even this measure is only achieved after a long process of study and practice. If this is the case with native speakers, who have most of the language resources at their disposal, it is even more evident among learners of a second language whose vocabulary and linguistic knowledge are limited. Furthermore, from outcomes of research in the area of writing in a second language, we learn that not only linguistic deficiencies (morphological, syntactical, lexical, and rhetorical) hinder the chances to succeed in writing in the target language.2 Various intellectual deficiencies, for which we as Hebrew teachers can rarely compensate, also influence the ability to write. Indeed, experience has taught us that in most cases, students who write well in their first language will also do better in Hebrew writing. 1This article is based on an earlier version co-authored with N. Krohn (in Hebrew ) published in Hed-Ha'Ulpan (Fall 1990). 2See S. Folman, 1988. 84 SHOFAR Regarding the question of the need to write in the target language, it is difficult to defend the teaching of this skill.·Except for specific cases of students who intend to live in Israel or study there, or those who prepare for study or a career in the field ofJudaica, most students of Hebrew do not feel a real need to express themselves in written Hebrew. While it might be nice, of course, if they could write a note or a letter in Hebrew, it is not an imperative. Another reason that the teaching ofwriting in Hebrew is marginal is the short time available to teacher and student alike. It does not make sense to foster a skill that does not fulfill a strong practical need and whose achievements in performance will not be very high relative to the efforts invested in acquiring it. Finally, one cannot ignore the fact that the correction of written assignments takes up a great deal of the teacher's time. Despite all that has been said so far, looking at writing from a different point of view would demonstrate the many advantages of using writing in the process of language teaching. We should look at writing not as a skill by itself but rather as an activity that can assist in the language acquisition process: writing reinforces all functions of the language and creates a basis for transfer and integration between them. Writing also serves as an alternative learning route and an efficient tool for diagnosis and evaluation. In the following pages we shall discuss each of these advantages in detail. Reinforcement of Other Functions and Transfer In first-language teaching what is most prominent is the relationship between reading and writing, but mutual reinforcement occurs also between writing and speaking and writing and listening in second-language teaching. Even though it is common practice to define reading as a receptive skill, whereas writing is considered a creative one, the literature has recently emphasized the similarities rather than the differences between the two. This change in emphasis occurred mainly as a result of the shift in researchers' point ofview from the product to the process.3 Thus, by analyzing...