Report on NMELRC Meeting in Israel
On May 18, 2008 the NMELRC conducted a conference, organized by Professor Shmuel Bolozky, on "Promoting Intensive Study of Hebrew by American Students in Israel," at the BYU Center for Near Eastern Studies in Jerusalem. About 30 participants attended, including directors of the major intensive Hebrew programs (ulpanim) in Israel, and some highly regarded teachers from these programs. Professor Kirk Belnap, the Director of the Center, talked of the NMELRC and its mission; of past, present and projected contributions to the field; and of the Center's relationship with the Federal Government. ACTFL's current President, Professor Ray Clifford, introduced the Proficiency Approach and proficiency-based assessment. Professor Vardit Ringvald presented the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and their adaptation to Hebrew, and conducted a "live" Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), which she then analyzed together with the audience.All participants were very impressed with the ACTFL Guidelines themselves, and with the prospect of using uniform assessment criteria throughout Israel, regardless of the type of ulpan (be it at the universities, government-run schools, or private ulpanim), which will also conform to norms used in the United States. Although the goals of university ulpanim will be somewhat different from the rest in that they place more emphasis on "academic" Hebrew while the others emphasize "survival" and "social/cultural" skills, the assessment tools would still be the same. The participants welcomed the idea of ACTFL and the NMELRC offering an OPI workshop in Israel - for the purpose of internalizing the assessment standardization process, as well as for the potential it offers by training ACTFL-certified Israeli testers to conduct entry and exit tests, proving the effectiveness of intensive Hebrew teaching in Israel. Although most ulpanim do have placement and exit tests, they are not compatible with those of ACTFL, nor are they as thorough.
In the long term, another interesting possibility emerges. It turns out that the Language Instruction Unit of Adult Education (in the Israeli Ministry of Education) is proposing to "map" all ulpanim in Israel, and establish a uniform set of proficiency norms based on the European Union's CEF (or CEFR) criteria, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. If that eventually happens, cross-referencing between CEF and ACTFL may well become a reality, which will benefit the United States, Europe, and Israel. But as this is just within the realm of an idea, conducting an OPI workshop in Israel is a necessary first step towards standardization between ACTFL and the myriad of measurement criteria used in Israel.