Teaching and Learning Together
By: Michelle Markowitz ENP Intern When I signed up to help tutor Ethiopian-Israeli high school students in English, I didn’t realize that I was going to learn a few things about the English language too! On my first day as a volunteer in one of ENP’s academic assistance after-school programs, the teacher taught a lesson on the Present Perfect tense. Present Perfect—has anyone, ever, heard of this? I was sure I used it all of the time, but I had no idea what it was! And so, I listened closely to the lesson, alongside the 4 high school girls who I was there to tutor, and learned how to create sentences and questions using the present perfect sense—for example, “Have you eaten today? Yes, I have eaten a sandwich.” Even though I have been in ulpan for almost 4 months now, it only took me five minutes to decide that English is much harder to learn than Hebrew. There are no rules in English, the way there are in Hebrew. And Hebrew only has ...