How to bond parents and Jewish children in a creative way and teach the whole family a new language which will stay with them for a lifetime and open up gates to a stronger identity?
There is no need to elaborate upon the dreadful results of children learning Hebrew in this country – a well known fact about which everyone complains but generally speaking the problem is still not solved. Have you asked yourselves why?
Often, organization invite Hebrew speakers to teach both children at Sunday schools or adults without understanding that teaching a language is a profession, a skill for which people study for years.
If children would learn the language with joy and also achieve good results it would probably affect their attitude to general Jewish studies. It will ease off the panic before the Bar Mitzva ceremonies: prepare the youngster for a positive attitude to the prayer book and create a bond, of family learning between the parents and their kids from a very early stage in the children’s lives.
So the problem lies not only with the quality of the teachers but also in the fact that parents and grandparents do not demonstrate their own love and commitment to their ancestral language which combines our cultural heritage with modern Israel and is (or should be) the lingua franca of every Jew anywhere in the world.
At the initiative of some parents who are unhappy with how things stand at the moment the Spiro Ark devised a special course for parents and grandparents.
The classes will take place initially once a month and if students would wish to increase the dose we will make it more extensive.
The 2 hour evening course will include the reading of young children’s books, beautifully illustrated, written by poets, best writers, or educators written mainly in rhyme which both kids and adults would love and would find easy to memorise. Each lesson will also include children’s songs with action which once practised would bring much joy to the whole family.
The first session will take place at HGGS on Wednesday 17th December and will cost you only £10 – for a unique experience (if paid in advance only £7.50).
The first children’s books we will be working on (£5) will be sold on the night.
This course will be taught by Nitza Spiro who has much experience in making the learning of the language a pleasant experience.
The Spiro Ark will be happy to offer other similar groups identical courses and franchise them originally throughout London and then in the provinces too.
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