Bridge over Troubled Water: Spelling Accuracy of Novel Phonemes in Arabic among Native Hebrew‑Speaking Pupils in a Bilingual—Arabic‑Hebrew—Elementary School

Abstract

Previous studies of the Neve Shalom/Wahat al‑Salam/Oasis of Peace Bilingual School have focused mainly on the socio‑cultural and political aspects of the school. The current study explores spelling accuracy of novel phonemes. Four tasks were created for the 2nd‑4th grades for the purpose of this study, all dealing with phonemic aspects and phoneme‑grapheme correspondences. Compared with the poor results of previous studies dealing with spelling accuracy among Hebrew L1 pupils in non‑bilingual settings, the results of the current study show significantly higher scores in all grades for all the tasks. It is assumed that the most significant factor affecting higher scores as of the second grade is the unique pedagogical setting implemented at Neve Shalom a few years ago. It advocates mutual learning of L1/L2 pupils mentored by L1 teachers without translation and without separate lessons for Hebrew and Arabic speakers, as had been previously accepted at Neve Shalom, and still is in other Arabic‑Hebrew settings in Israel. The results of the current study may also indicate that early exposure to Arabic in a bilingual setting also enhances linguistic knowledge.