**** ETNI on the web http://www.etni.org.il http://www.etni.org **** -------- Original Message -------- Subject: The modular unseen From: "Itzik" <im-meron@xxxxxxxxxxxx> I have been teaching English at highschool level for 30 years now. With every periodical change in Bagrut formats, I have managed to adapt my teaching techniques to the new requirements and thus successfully prepare the students for their Bagrut exam in particular and for tertiary education in general. It goes without saying that a learner of a foreign language, who is, on the whole, not exposed to the language itself outside of school, requires tools with which to "climb" the linguistic ladder in order to tackle the English exam. That required an ability by the teacher "to enter" the mind of the exam writers, discover the skill being tested and pass it on to the student with directed teaching of the various techniques required to master those skills.So if, for example, there was a completion question which tested the passive, the student recognized the structure being tested and was then able to apply and use his knowledge of the structure in answering a question of comprehension. With the modular Bagrut, the student requires none of these tools, at least not in direct use. In other words, a student may very well answer all questions in the unseen correctly without having to use ANY of the grammatical structures acquired throughout his schooling. He will not need the conditional, the passive, phrasal verbs, special structures, relative clauses, reported speech, most tenses, etc etc Even in his "composition" (which has been reduced to paragraph writing), there is no need to include these structures in order to attain a high mark. Now, we, English teachers, are told to teach a whole global language without the provision of helping tools which are the student's crutches when it comes to acquisition of a second language. Teach a baby to walk without his legs.How on earth do you teach a child to comprehend if you don't supply him with the tools to do so? Under the New Bagrut, these tools are redundant! How do you teach one to be intelligent, which is what is asked of the English teacher now? I understand the need to prepare students for academic studies where they need to grapple with professional bibliography in English, but the New Bagrut requirements will not do the job, for they do away with the whole English language edifice that has been systematically built for years only to be replaced with an exam in which the good students will do well in without any need to even study English at school, while the unintelligent ones will fail miserably even with the best teaching, or else will suffice with module A or B or C at best!! I do hope that these comments are taken into account next time an exam is written. Sincerely yours, Liora Meron email: liorameron@xxxxxxxxxxx Phone No. : 09-7716355 Mobile: 054-6860063 ##### To send a message to the ETNI list email: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ##### ##### Send queries and questions to: ask@xxxxxxxx #####