[etni] Fw: inferior EFL instruction

From: "Ask_Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
To: "ETNI List" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 11:58:52 +0300
----- Original Message ----- 
From: sbshai - sbshai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: inferior EFL instruction


What you're telling us, Tova, is indeed sad; however, it seems to me that it 
is the job of the Inspectorate to keep track of what goes on in schools like 
those you describe.  If this were so, the rest of us who dedicatedly do our 
jobs and then some would not have to be forced to add yet another 
questionable program to our already crushing workload (and it's certainly 
overwhelming if done properly)!

I do not want to incur the wrath of the powers-that-be, but it's getting 
tiresome that all teachers are lumped together and regarded as a buch of 
work shirkers.  It's bad enough that our paychecks don't reflect all the 
time and effort we devote to our jobs (I know that everybody tends to think 
so, but in the case of hardworking teachers that's actually true!) -- don't 
we at least deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect for our 
professional standards and work ethics?

This is the reason that much of what you read on ETNI sounds like a litany 
of complaints, dissatisfaction or even rebeliousness!  Teachers are simply 
worn out by the finger of blame pointed at us whenever something doesn't 
work out the way the MOE envisioned or was led to believe.
It's the easy way out to say it was the teacher's fault instead of 
re-examining faulty programs, hishtalmut courses that are supposed to 
prepare us for new programs but are often not much more than thinly 
disguised propaganda for those programs, and so on.   (It should go without 
saying that there certainly are good instructors sometimes, and they're not 
responsible for the grade B or C merchandise they have to try to sell.)

When a teacher works herself to the bone trying to make research projects a 
meaningful experience for her students, for example, she's clearly going to 
be frustrated when she sees no progress in the language proficiency of her 
students -- especially when she regards the overall decline in students' 
language ability over the years, and she knows that she could have made 
better use of teaching time to curb that decline.
Is it fair to say that such a teacher -- and that's many (if not most) of 
us -- is to blame?  I think not, and I hope you agree!

All the best,
Batya


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[etni] Fw: inferior EFL instruction

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