[etni] Fw: Fw: The problem of levels

Dear List,

I felt I really had to respond to a couple of things that Jennifer Byk wrote:

Jennifer wrote:

More and more students are spending days of precious time, when they could be improving their English, improving their computer skills. They hand in delightfully professional looking projects, but have acquired very little English in the process.

How I agree with you. Even when I assign performance tasks, I find that the presentation is wonderful and the spelling and grammar is perfect. So how do I ensure that the children have learned something? If there is any doubt that the children are learning, I quiz them orally about their work. Alternatively, I list oral presentation as part of the criteria.Whichever way I choose, it means that the children have to know their vocabulary and grammar thoroughly, and not just regurgitate on paper what they found on the Internet or whatever was written by their parents, private teachers, big sisters etc.

Then she wrote:
The last problem is the teaching of grammar. I am not against teaching grammar; I am not even against teaching it out of context (horror!), but I believe it should be taught extremely carefully, otherwise the students come
up with the most dreadful misunderstandings, and what is worse, when they can't make head or tail of it, it tends to create a barrier to their learning the language. Nevertheless, many teachers are devoting a great
deal of teaching time to grammar, and what is worse, often giing as much as 40 points to it on tests.

Grammar is the bane of my life. In trying to adhere to the new curriculum , I give what I believe is a fair balance between grammar and all the other demands of English teaching. I tend to stress writing, using grammar in context. I try to relegate dry grammar exercises to quizzes and homework and build "grammar-free" tests. Unfortunately, however, there are private teachers (unlike you) outside the system who seem determined to undo whatever I am trying to build. Hey, private teachers out there - please don't work against us. Please don't fill the kids' heads with endless grammar exercises so that when the children do their tests in my school they fail miserably because they have no idea how to use the language. If I had a shekel for the number of times that I have heard the phrase "but my private teacher says", I would be a millionaire by now.

I know this posting is a little long, but no apologies. I think the time has come for all those private teachers out there to stand up and work with us (where were you at ETAI?) so that we can all work to improve the standard of English in this country.

Laura Shashua


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