[etni] Re: Fw: Sara Cove's letter

Here, here!  Reducing class size is the answer to most of our worries.  And
not to 30, but to 20.  Unfortunately, every teacher in the country would
have to be cloned to accomplish this.  Believe it or not, our general
inspector (not the English one) said that hakbatzot Aleph in English and
Mathcould have even 50 kids in them.  She said that we can't blame class
size for any of our difficulties.  I wonder when she last taught...
Michele
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Ask_Etni <ask@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: byk - byk@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Sara Cove's letter
>
> I have been mulling over Sara Cove's letter,  in which she reacts to
> English
> teachers' claims that we have to teach what hasn't been taught in L1.
>
> She says that all the reading strategies, sentence structure, writing, etc.
> are taught in elementary school, and she blames the syndrome of "the
> teachers in the year below didn't do their job" excuse.
>
> Sara, I believe this is a cop out.  I teach many pupils who spent their
> early schooling years in the States and other English speaking countries.
> Many were back here already, by sixth grade.  Without exception, and
> unrelated to intelligence, they are all able to write a well-structured
> composition, are aware of parts of  speech, different types of sentences,
> how to reasearch the internet without once using copy/paste, how to
> summarize, and so on.  Furthermore, their general knowledge is good, and,
> whether they are natural readers or not, they have been 'brainwashed' to
> read at least one book a month.  Needless to say, all these skills are
> carried over to Hebrew.
>
> Why are the things you teach not producing the same results?  One answer is
> very simple; none of these pupils studied in classes of more than 20
> pupils.
> Can elementary school teachers take home notebooks  every day with clesses
> of 38 pupils?  The other answer is disciipline in the classroom and the
> school.  One of my pupils, recently returned from a two-year stay abroad,
> is
> so horrified by the zoo-like atmosphere in his school (right here in the
> wealthy centre of the country), that he is looking to transfer to a school
> for the intellectually gifted.
>
> Do not blame the homes; I teach these pupils and they are all polite,
> well-behaved children out of school.  Do not blame the teachers.  I hate
> hearing the comment "The teacher can't control the class".  What are they?
> Animals in a circus who need to be "controlled.  Obviously, there is
> something seriously wrong with the system, and this letter is not the place
> to go into it.  But it is certainly time that the English teachers stop
> trying to make up for the system's lacks ,all by themselves, and for far
> too
> little money.
>
> A very concrete example of a f----- up system.  Passive is usually taught
> in
> the 8th grade in English, but only in the 9th grade in Hebrew!!!
>
> Jennifer Byk
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> ** Etni homepage - http://www.etni.org
>   or - http://www.etni.org.il **
> ** for help - ask@xxxxxxxx **
> ** to post to this list - etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **
> -----------------------------------------------
>
>


----------------------------------------------- 
** Etni homepage - http://www.etni.org 
   or - http://www.etni.org.il **
** for help - ask@xxxxxxxx **
** to post to this list - etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **
-----------------------------------------------

Other related posts: