I don't want to tar all Jewish (day) schools with a broad brush, but . . .
Where I make minyan we have several boys (past bar mitzvah) who can
* read Hebrew
* pronounce Hebrew
but have NO IDEA what the Hebrew words mean. They are upper grade students at an yeshiva school.
We also have two other boys, one home schooled and the other on-line schooled who DO
* read Hebrew
* pronounce Hebrew correctly
and SPEAK Hebrew intelligently; one speaks Hebrew better than English, but he's good at English, too.
What does that say about Hebrew language education in the U.S.
Truth in blogging: I went to Israel solely to learn Hebrew. The fact that after six months in a kibbutz ulpan (intensive Hebrew language course) I only was able to separate syllables into words caused me to stay longer. In the end, I stayed, got a job (actually, two), found a wife, and had a son.
I am not a Hebrew speaker on the level of Ben Yehuda; nor even at Ben Gurion's level (Ben Gurion and "dik-duk" {grammar} often were at odds), but I developed - and maintain - a "survival level" Hebrew.
I'm a s_l_o_w reader, but I usually can isolate a shoresh (word root) and, given the word's context, figure out what the writer intended. Rather than an American Express card, I never leave home without my Megiddo dictionary and my 501 Hebrew Verbs paperback.
By the way, for anyone wanting to understand how Hebrew works, to meet Hebrew's "Seven Families" of verb construction, 501 Hebrew Verbs is the book to buy. When I bought my first copy, in 1975, there were only 201 Hebrew verbs, "fully conjugated," and the book was appropriately titled. The 501 Hebrew Verbs not only offers more verbs - Hebrew is a verb-based language - but it also includes example sentences, with English translations!
I am most assuredly NOT a teacher; that's a talent I totally lack,
I am, however, a parent and my children have at least a basic command of Hebrew. My daughter now speaks Hebrew much better than I - 'course she lives, studies, works, and is raising our grand-daughter in Israel. In truth, my 3-year-old grand-daughter has a better vocabulary than this scrivener.
I know, first hand, that if you don't use it you lose it. That applies to many things, including a foreign language.
Unfortunately, it seems as if the students in the yeshiva schools don't have Hebrew vocabulary/comprehension to lose.
The children I know who attend the yeshiva school don't comprehend Aramaic - the language of the Talmud - either.
Young children are language sponges. We had a woman from Romania who came to the ulpan with her gan (kindergarten)-age daughter. Neither knew an א from a ת at the beginning of the 6-month course. After a few weeks playing with kibbutz children at the gan, her vocabulary/comprehension was better than most of ours after six months.
I don't know why children who attend Jewish day schools can't comprehend at least a basic Hebrew, something more than שבת שלום.
To paraphrase a line from My Fair Lady - I'm not sure if it appeared in Pygmalion - Why can't the Jews speak our language?.
501 Hebrew Verbs, S. Bolozky, Barron's Educational Series, Inc., ISBN13: 978-0-8120-9468-9
Change passwords often - frequently, too
