Abstract:

More and more English vocabulary is immigrating into Hebrew. Incorporating English words into everyday Hebrew is considered to be “cool” and reasonably widespread among the young generation. This however does not mean that Israelis are proficient in the language. The realization that there will be no progress in globalization without being proficient in English triggered a new reform in the education system that is expected to promote the knowledge of English and subsequently internationalization and globalization. The reform ensures that students study all four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking), while in the past the focus was mostly on reading comprehension. However, it seems that by introducing the reform, the Ministry of Education is paying lip service to English learning promotion. What is more, the reform highlights all the existing problems associated with English language learning in Israel. Those span from the overall lack of qualified English teachers (Carmel & Badash, 2018) to the flippant attitudes of Israelis towards English. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the challenges standing in the way of English language learning in Israel that would eventually hinder the process of globalization and to suggest possible solutions to tackle at least partially those challenges.

We believe that some dramatic steps should be taken. English has to be introduced at kindergarten age instead of the second grade as most schools in Israel do (Carmel & Badash, 2018), and the importance of learning the language has to be instilled already then. Furthermore, the job of teaching languages has to be made more prestigious and lucrative to attract qualified teachers who prefer to find jobs in the private sector. It is also important to lower the number of students in foreign language classes and allocate enough hours for teaching all the skills. Without these changes, "globalization" through acquiring the English language will stay somewhat of a utopia.

References:
[1] Carmel, R. & Badash, M. (2018). Views on attrition and retention among beginning English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Israel and implications for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 70(1), 142-152.

Keywords:

English language, globalization, Israel.