**** ETNI on the web http://www.etni.org.il http://www.etni.org **** I second Batya's message. I don't want to blame anyone for anything, but kids do not get a proper education in Hebrew. I am appalled by the fact that my son in the fifth grade is taught "language" (Safah) by one teacher and "language" (Lashon) by someone else, and yet another teacher is responsible for their extensive reading. Now, I'm really pleased that they are at least doing extensive reading because my daughter in the eleventh grade has actually gone through the entire school system without once having to do any extensive reading except for in English. None of the reading comprehension skills that my son learns in "Safah" are applied when he reads in the other subjects - ie. Geography and Science. I don't blame the teachers but something is really wrong with the system. Another problem I have found as the years go by is that kids take less and less responsibility for their own learning, they don't do homework, they don't even think that taking out paper and writing utensils in class is something they should do without being told -- and this is in an Aleph group! I don't get angry, but the situation makes me sad. It all begins with parents setting limits. If kids are allowed to stay up all night on the computer and go to discos and take ecstacy and mushrooms and smoke nargilot and drive drunk and and no one bothers to check what's going on then it's hard to expect them to listen to teachers in school. My daughter is the absolutely only child with a curfew and the only one I know who has not been allowed to go to all sorts of discos all over the place beginning in the sixth grade. And when she was younger the parents in the class argued with me that I was causing her harm by not letting her do those things like the other kids! It's no wonder the level of English is going down! Michele Yisrael & Batya Medad wrote: > **** ETNI on the web http://www.etni.org.il http://www.etni.org **** > > Dovrat is a > bureaucratic > > idea and hasn't been implemented. It's a bad plan that won't improve > English. Its "inventors" blame teachers for not working hard enough. > The NBA is new and isn't the cause of the low level of English. The > problem doesn't start in high school. > The cause is the fundamental teaching methods in the general foundation > Hebrew studies and the foundation English teaching methods. Israelis > children aren't given basic language skills in Hebrew, so they can't > transfer them to English. I'm referring to grammar and composition > skills. Then in English they're not taught basic phonetics and > grammar. "Pidgin English" is acceptable, fluency over accuracy. When I > get students in high school, even the best are linguistically deprived, > disabled, handicapped, not because of any primary problem. It's the > result of the way they were educated, or not educated. > And this is a serious problem, because there's already a whole > generation of teachers lacking linguistic skills in Hebrew. > Batya > > http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ > > http://me-ander.blogspot.com/ > > ##### To send a message to the ETNI list email: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ##### > ##### Send queries and questions to: ask@xxxxxxxx ##### ##### To send a message to the ETNI list email: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ##### ##### Send queries and questions to: ask@xxxxxxxx #####