Intermediate Modern Hebrew II · Middle Eastern, South Asian, And African Studies
not bad. daily homeworks that take no more than ten fiffteen minutes and frequent quizzes. not bad and not time consuming at all.
She gives five quizzes, one presentation and one Final. She does a fantastic job of preparing you for the quizzes and gives practice quizzes, if you study you will do well in her class.
Daily assignments, some longer than others. Stories, poems, occasional short essays, five quizzes total. She only grades the quizzes but gives back comments on all the assignments and assumes you're putting in your best.
6 quizzes- worst grade dropped, oral presentation/skit, nightly homework (on average about 20 min worth), final exam
Homework nightly (10-20 min approx.), a weekly journal (typed, 100 words), one presentation at the end of the semester, 4 exams, and a final.
she teaches hebrew language.I wouldnt recommend her. just stick with Rina Kreitman and you will get the A you deserve. If you are good with hebrew and really understnad the material, the test grades will NOT reflect your knowledge on the material because Michal does not have a standard grading system and makes things up when she feels like it (all ambiguous). She will take points off left and right for no reason because she can. Stick with Rina.
I am grateful to have had Rina as a professor. First of all, I don't know how she does it. In the Hebrew language program, students come from a range of Hebrew backgrounds, some have studied for ten years at Yeshiva, some have lived in Israel, and others like me began their course of study at Columbia. I went through several years of Hebrew at Columbia and consider Rina to be the best in her department. There are other great professors in the department, but none that can hold a torch to Rina. I struggled with Hebrew and had to work really hard to catch up with the other students, and Rina was there to help me along the way. She was willing to meet me in her free time to read through texts with me. In the end, I was able to do as well as the other students and this was a huge payoff. Its a good feeling to know that when something is difficult, if you work hard, you will succeed. To me that is the sign of a great teacher, someone who can take the student who struggles the most, but works hard can do as well as the other students with more experience. The subject matter she taught was practical, useful and interesting. There was one story we read about the human emotions that I will save forever. In addition, we talked about job interviews, and composing resumes in Hebrew. We also made a presentation, which gave us an opportunity to hone our public speaking skills. The texts she…
Nechama, above the other hebrew teachers here, is a professor. While the other classes here have a hebrew-school vibe, Nechama tones it down tremendously and is incredibly on top of her shit. She is brilliant and you will definitely learn and be challenged in this class. HOWEVER, that did not prevent this class from turning somewhat into a class on Judaism, no matter how she tried otherwise. The first few days of class my understanding was that that we would be studying Israeli literature and culture, and I was excited about this. I understood that there is an element of tradition to Israeli culture, but that it is also much much more than that. Nechama did many times try to maintain balance the tradition with the modern, but eventually catered solely to the religious crowd. ALL of her examples for new words came from the Bible, and many (if not most) of her sentences began with "For those of you who went to day school...". If you did go to day school, you will feel very comfortable in this class. If you did not, then less so. I personally did not come to this class to study Judaism, I came to learn Hebrew. I know these are by no means mutually exclusive, but they are also not identical. Nechama repeatedly emphasized how important it is to understand the Jewish tradition in order to understand Israeli literature (once in a while she even sounded apologetic about it, which I ap…
Philip is a great guy and very passionate about language. His style of teaching is a little tedious but he is funny and nice which basically makes up for it. He's a fair grader as well.
Yitzhak is the best teacher I ever had for hebrew language. He is nice, understanding, and extremely smart. He teaches the material slowly and clearly, and always makes sure we understand before continuing on. The tests are extremely fair, they're always exactly what we learned in class AND he provides a practice exam beforehand which is extremely similar to the test. He grades fairly, and drops our lowest grade. He is just a great great teacher, and I can honestly say I've learned an insane amount of hebrew compared to before the semester.