Education/News/January 2022/Wikimedia Israel’s education program: Students enrich Hebrew Wiktionary with Biblical expressions still in use in modern Hebrew
Wikimedia Israel’s education program: Students enrich Hebrew Wiktionary
The goal of this program is to engage middle and high-school students in writing new entries on the Hebrew version of Wiktionary. Writing definitions for single words or short phrases requires a high level of expertise, which the students do not have. Explaining idioms and proverbs, however, is a task most students can undertake. We chose expressions from the Hebrew Bible because Modern Hebrew is largely based on Biblical Hebrew. Many of the Biblical expressions are used in the common language, but the average student is often not well acquainted with the original source. This project enhances the students’ knowledge of Biblical Hebrew stories and values while enriching their vocabulary with expressions commonly used in Modern Hebrew.
The shorter time span of this project (compared with “Students write Wikipedia”) expands the range of students that can take part. Nevertheless, it requires basic skills of writing, researching and thinking, and it contributes to the students’ linguistic development.
Although the task requires writing a relatively short amount of text, the project has turned out to be challenging, because many expressions change their meaning over the years, and the students have to differentiate the modern meaning from the meanings used in the context of traditional commentaries and from those used in the original Biblical text. I personally felt that the students should learn to appreciate this meaning shift over the generations, and use resources designated specifically for explaining idioms and proverbs, rather than network resources only. We implement these insights by publishing a guideline for teachers and students, which helps them conduct the research process more effectively.
The best advice I can offer teachers, who would like to start a similar project, is to carry out the task themself before leading the students into this project. This experience can teach them more than any written guide.