THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
24—Friday, January 13, 1967
Joan Gilbert Betrothed
to Frederick H. Aaron
- -
JOAN BARBARA GILBERT
Mr. and Mrs. Harold H. Gilbert
of Warrington Dr. announce the
engagement of their daughter Joan
Barbara to Frederick Harold
Aaron, son of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil
Aaron of Mendota Ave.
Miss Gilbert, a senior at the
University of Michigan, is affili-
ated with Delta Phi Epsilon So-
rority. Her fiance is a graduate
of the University of Michigan and
an alumnus of Zeta Beta Tau Fra-
ternity. He is attending the Uni-
versity of Detroit's school of den-
tistry.
A June wedding is planned.
Committee to Judge
Probus Club Awards
A seven-man committee has been
named to serve as judges for the
fifth annual Probus Club awards
for academic achievement at Wayne
State University.
The committee includes Richard
E. Cross, chairman of the execu-
tive board of American Motors;
Judge George C. Edwards of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit; Willis F. Woods, director,
Detroit Institute of Arts; Herbert
Kaufman, Charles Perlman, Mar-
tin K. Stein, and Circuit Judge
John M. Wise.
Arthur J. Rubiner, is non-voting
chairman of the committee.
Two awards will be given, each
consisting of a $500 grant without
restrictions. One will be for a
faculty member in the natural
sciences and another for repre-
sentative of the humanities.
Awards will be made at the
annual Probus dinner, Feb. 18.
Hebrew Gets Fresh Approach in Center Audio-Visual CourseT
By CHARLOTTE HYAMS
One day, Mrs. Paul Kelman de-
cided she was through playing
second fiddle to Hebrew. Dad and
the kids knew enough of the lan-
guage to talk behind her back.
Three months later, thanks to a
unique new course at the Jewish
Center, Mrs. Kelman is speaking
the language of Israel.
To call it a miracle would be a
gross exaggeration. Her Hebrew is
not fluent: she cannot read the
poetry of Bialik. But in fewer than
14 weeks, at four hours of class
time per week, Mrs. Kelman can
carry on an elementary Hebrew
conversation.
Before Oct. 10, she didn't know a
word; at the end of a year she will
converse fluently, using 1,000
terms spoken daily in Israel.
On Monday and Wednesday
afternoons at the Center, she sits
with 19 fellow novices at small
lunch tables. At the head of hers,
this time, was the teacher, Shula
Fleischer, a vivacious y o u n g
matron whose rolled r's betray
her Israeli background.
"What did you eat today, Mrs.
Kelman?" Shula. asks in Hebrew.
"Ahalti sandwich im dahg tuna."
The ladies giggle. Tuna fish sand-
wiches always suffer in translation.
Host at another table is the ex-
ecutive director of the Jewish
Center, Irwin Shaw, who has
nurtured the Center's Hebrew pro-
gram since its babyhood.
The daytime classes consist
primarily of housewives, many of
whom readily admit they want to
catch up with their children in
Hebrew school.
But one of the pupils is Dr.
Morton Plotnick, Center program
director, who says he is bound
. and determined to learn Hebrew.
He is one of nine staff members
who have been so taken with the
Center's own "product" that
they're using it themselves.
The product is an entirely new
concept of teaching Hebrew by
means of audio-visual aids—film-
strips and accompanying tapes.
Aside from the attractive pack-
aging, however—the mechanical
means that put a scientific gloss on
the program—it is based on a very
simple observation:
That children learn to converse
in their native tongue before they
learn to read and write, that they
are conditioned to a language by
constant oral repetition.
Asher Tarmon, in charge of the
Center's Hebrew programs, ex-
plains: "As children, we connect
verbal sounds with certain situa-
tions. In the same way, the class
is presented with a situation in the
film strip. Sounds accompanying
the pictures are played on tape,
and the students repeat what they
hear, the voices of native Israelis."
So that the pupil may review
the classroom work at home, he
has his own book showing the
pictures in the filmstrip, as well
as a long-playing record with the
accompanying voice. Back in
class, the well-rehearsed students
will "role play" the entire situa-
tion.
But the cream on the pie, the
feature that makes Tarmon, a
school principal in his native Israel,
visibly proud, is the four new in-
struction booths.
These small huts are just big
enough for a student to be seated
before a tape recorder. He picks
the desired lesson for study, inserts
the taped pictured card in the
machine, and it plays the voice he
wishes to hear. He may then re-
cord his own words and play them
back to see if he has the correct
pronunciation.
The cost of the machinery is
admittedly high, but the results are
worth it, Tarmon said.
Two new sections have been
added to the already-existing three
—some 20 students in each, meet-
ing four hours a week. Attendance
in the year-long course has been
unbelievingly high, Tarmon said.
Hebrew has been taught at
the Center for many years; there
are some 160 persons enrolled 'in
various classes. Several meet in-
formally on Saturday afternoons;
there is no writing. One is so
advanced, its members are read-
Udall to Address
Bond Conference
Secretary of the Interior Stewart
L. Udall will be a principal speak-
er at the planning conference of
the board of governors of the
Israel Bond Organization at the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel this week-
end, it was an-
nounced by Louis
H. Boyar, chair-
man of the board.
The conference,
which will draw
up a program for
t h e 1967 Israel
Bond campaign,
also will hear Fi-
nance Ministe r
Pinh a s Sapir,
who will outline
Israel's economic
position and its
development
plans and needs for the coming
year.
More than 350 Jewish leaders
from communities throughout the
United States and Canada will
take part in the conference, which
will open with a luncheon noon
today.
As head of the Department. of
Interior, Secretary Udall has won
recognition as a leading authority
on problems of conservation and
the utilization of water resources.
He is an expert on the conversion
of saline water, an area in which
President Johnson has initiated a
cooperative effort between the
United States and Israel, provid-
ing for the use of atomic energy
in removing salt from sea water.
Both Secretary Udall and Fi-
nance Minister Sapir will speak at
the dinner session of the Israel
Bond conference Saturday eve-
ning.
Other speakers will be Abraham
Feinberg, president of the Israel
During her current visit in Israel, Emma Schaver laid the Bond Organization; Samuel Roth-
cornerstone for the third Beis Lazaroff — Lazaroff House — at Kfar berg, national campaign chairman;
Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, vice presi-
Chabad. Mrs. Schaver is sponsoring the construction of this new
dent, who has just returned from
village as part of the Schaver-Lazaroff family's interest in the
conferences in Israel with prime
Chabad movement and in Kfar Chabad, which is located several
Minister Levi Eshkol and other
miles from Tel Aviv and has a vocational training school, and con-
government officials; Mrs. Jan
ducts classes in agriculture, printing, locksmithery and carpentry.
The third Beis Lazaroff will be erected at a cost of $250,000. It will Peerce, chairman of the national
serve as a dormitory for new arrived children from Morocco who women's division; and D. Lou
are presently studying in the Kfar Chabad vocational school. In the Harris, national chairman for
Canada.
photo, at the ground-breaking, were, (from left) Mrs. Schaver, Mrs.
R. Leneker of Israel, Sidney Fields and William Schumer of De-
The Tora says: "If thou for-
troit and Rabbi Mon Kazarnovsky of New York, who represented
sakest me for a single day I shall
the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson, at the ceremony.
Schumer also visited the Harry Schumer Carpentry School which foresake thee for two days."
— T. J. Berakot, end
was established at Kfar Chabad by his parents.
ing "Peter and the Wolf" in He-
brew.
Eventually, students of the audio-
visual program will be reading and
writing, too. But, following the
method's guidelines, it won't be
before the point at which a child
would learn to read and write his
own native language.
The method, although new with
Hebrew (Philadelphia was the first
community to use it), has been
used successfully with other lan-
guages.
It is based upon the Saint-Cloud
Method, which originated in France
as the result of a project suggested
to the French government by the
United Nations in 1951.
Today, it is used in the teaching
of French, Spanish, Italian,
German, Russian, English and
"American," the latter being of
particular value in the poverty
program.
Courses are being taught in
more than 1,800 U.S. and Canadi-
an school systems and in 83 other
countries. -
The Technion Research and De-
velopment Foundation of Haifa de-
veloped the Hebrew audio-visual
program, and the first ones in this
country are conducted in coopera-
tion with Chilton Books' Center for
Curriculum Development, Phila-
delphia.
The Philadelphia center, which
is in charge of teacher-training in
the Saint-Cloud Method, will co-
operate in a special one-week audio-
visual language teaching workshop
for Hebrew teachers from three
states and Ontario, meeting in De-
troit's center March 27-31. (See
story below) At the same time,
there will be a seminar for admin-
istrators considering the program.
A number of local Hebrew in-
structors are already using the
method—not as teachers, but as
students—at the Center, learning
fluency in speech and understand-
ing.
Tarmon stressed that knowl-
edge of a language does not al-
ways include self-confidence in
speaking that language. The
Saint-Cloud Method strives to
overcome that hesitancy.
What results can be expected?
Will there be any great rush to
Hebrew study? Tarmon is under-
standably cautious, but he is hope-
ful. "There is a tremendous poten-
tial in this country since Israel's
establishment," he said. "People
want this affinity—Hebrew—with
the homeland.
"Hebrew education until now has
been a childish occupation. Now, a
youngster can come to the Center
any day and see his parents study-
ing. If he has this example, he
too will think it is worthwhile."
* * *
Workshop to Introduce
New Language Program
The Jewish Center is inviting
teachers from Detroit and sur-
rounding areas to study a revolu-
tionary audio-visual method teach-
ing Hebrew.
A seminar on March '27 and a
workshop March 27-31 will intro-
duce "Habet Ushma (Look and
Listen)." The course was develop-
ed under the auspices of the Tech-
nion Research and Development
Foundation, Ltd. of Haifa and de-
signed to produce native-like flu-
ency in speaking, reading, and
writing.
With the unique use of film-
strips and accompanying tapes,
meaning is always taught and ac-
quired within the true-to-life cul-
tural context of modern-day Israel.
The voices recorded on the tapes
provide a master, constant model,
with the rhythm, intonation and
pronunciation of native Israeli
speakers. Through this experience,
students can appreciate and feel
a deeper means of self-expression
and understanding.
The introductory programs will
be conducted in cooperation with
the Chilton Center for Curriculum
Development, which is responsible
for teacher-training in the Saint-
Cloud Method in the United States.
Hebrew educators interested in
learning more about the programs
may write to the Jewish Center.
(
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