Hello everyone!

This week has been unusually wintery here in Israel. It's easy to get confused and assume that one is in Europe!
This week though was especially warm and pleasant though, here in our Ulpan. I really like the wintery atmosphere outside when it is so comfy inside and our teaching really pleases the students.
We had training for the teachers this week in Jerusalem. It was a lot of fun to travel abit and to have a change of atmosphere. It was also really nice to see the teachers in Jerusalem and to exchange stories about the differences in experiences in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was interesting to speak about and see the personalities of the different students that come to study in Jerusalem as compared to the personalities of the students here in Tel Aviv.
The great thing to see was that how the style of the city and the life there really attracts people with a similar personality. With regards to Tel Aviv, I can say that our students are really like the city that never sleeps. They are practical and are looking to study the language fast but not just Hebrew rather the language of the Israeli people. They want to become Israeli with a real Israeli accent and to be able to control their lives here. I personally like the practical nature of our students here in Tel Aviv and I think that it is a healthy and correct way to approach the Hebrew language. For this reason I very much enjoy studying with them.
Over the past few days we have been celebrating the birthday of Eliezer Ben Yehuda and so I thought to read a little about him in order to learn things that I didn't know already. It was interesting to discover that Ben Yehuda added around 300 words to the language such as; pedestrian street, train e.t.c His life work really took off after his death and I think that we are also proof that his life's work was correct. I don't want to think what life would be like without a special language of our own!

Shabbat Shalom and of course a warm and healthy winter,

Saray