Yours Truly or בינינו is a set of supplementary materials for students at the novice and intermediate levels developed at The University of Texas at Austin by Esther Raizen. With two fictional UT students, Ruth and Yoni, as the lead characters, the twenty units in the set present vignettes from the lives of contemporary students. Ruth is from a mixed American/Israeli family, and Yoni is an American who studied Hebrew and feels strongly connected to Israel and Hebrew culture. With families scattered in Israel, the US and South America, the characters and their relatives and friends create a colorful mosaic of school-work-life issues that support a variety of class activities and assignments. Because of its content, this set is appropriate for college students, possibly for upper classmen in high school, but not for k-10 students. Teachers are urged to exercise discretion while working with the materials, as some of the issues (e.g., illness, death, relationships) may be sensitive for some students.

Yours Truly is presented as a set of consecutive pdf documents, each representing a unit based on a vignette, with 8-12 written exercises. The vignettes themselves are available as sound files (see "text" below), and most of the exercises require repetitive listening. Each unit presents up to ten keywords, available both in text format and as sound files (see "keywords" below). These words are presented as they appear in the vignette, not in their dictionary form. The final exercises in each unit focus on comprehension, the ability to analyze and synthesize information, and creative writing. Learners have access to flashcards with sound and memory games for each unit, and to two listening exercises for each unit through the Humpty Dumpty portal, which provides immediate feedback on the exercises. A Hebrew-English glossary for all units is also available in pdf format.

The rationale behind the set and the different exercise types is available here. Both instructors and students will benefit from reading it.
The units are now available as a book through Amazon (search for Yours Truly: Hebrew from the Heart of Texas).

I am grateful to Suloni Robertson from Liberal Arts ITS and her team, and to the leadership of the Texas Hillel, for their support with the book illustrations. Credits for the illustrations are available here.

At UT, Yours Truly is used within an intensive setting. This setting assumes, among others, extensive preparation at home and minimal use of technology in the classroom, as class time is dedicated almost exclusively to the activation of vocabulary and skills. Accordingly, student-work on all Yours Truly materials is done at home, in advance of class activities.

All suggestions and comments should be directed to Esther Raizen.

To request transcripts for disability/accessibility reasons, please contact Dr. Esther Raizen (raizen@austin.utexas.edu)