Our family arrived in Israel just last week, and a day later(!!) my daughters (age 7 & 10) and I started ulpan here at Ulpan-Or.  I was at about level gimel when we began, and my daughters were beginners (the older one already knew the alphabet and some basic conversational words; the younger was starting from scratch).  We are here for 6 months; the girls will start an Israeli summer camp next week, and will attend Israeli school in the fall, so I hoped to use this week to give their Hebrew a jump start in preparation for the “immersion” of the coming months. 

Ulpan Or turned out to be a great choice for all of us.  The teachers who worked with my daughters were friendly, patient, and very creative in finding fun and effective ways to improve their speaking, comprehension, and reading.  The younger one has started to use Hebrew words in everyday conversations, and also has learned all of the vowels and about half of the consonants in the alphabet.  The older one now has a much better understanding of verbs and a noticeably bigger vocabulary.  They especially enjoyed meeting the director’s nine-year-old daughter, who came and spent a morning helping them with their lessons!

For me, too, the course has been a great way to start the year.  I plan to continue to study using the course materials from this week, especially the audio files and texts of Israeli popular songs!

Kol tov,

Michael K., Mountain View, California