[etni] Fw: re: Intelligence or English
- From: "Ask Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "Etni" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 15:44:59 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Hyatt" <hyatt@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Intelligence or English
wgh
Hi Janette,
Your point is well taken. But this is why for those whose ambition
is to understand soap operas and pop songs, the three and four point bagrut
is appropriate. But for those who want to get to college level English,
it's just not going to cut it. I recently saw the tests they give at one of
our universities for beginning, middle and higher level English--they would
blow you away. All of them are way, way beyond the level of the G test.
The highest level, which all BA students must pass, is about 3 pages of
extremely sophisticated language--far beyond Time magazine--with tough
reading comp questions to boot. See the New York Times editorials and book
reviews to get a sense.
And believe me, I'm all for the 3 point test. For those kids it's needed
and challenging. Not everyone needs to head off to univeristy. On the
contrary.
All the best,
David
Janette wrote:
> Just a tiny reminder David- and perhaps other pro -"let's make the English
> Bagrut an intelligence test" that we are teaching English as a foreign
> language....if we were teaching English to native speakers I would say to
> you- absolutely. We should aim to achieve all those goals you described.
> Have you just forgotten for a moment who are students are? Many of them
> are
> quite wonderful, hard working, motivated- because they want to understand
> soap operas on TV and the words to pop songs. Do you really want them to
> mainly infer rather than focus on the main idea and supporting details of
> a
> text?
> Nit-picking should not be a primary goal of an English bagrut test for EFL
> learners.
> Janette Segal
>
>
> David Hyatt wrote:
>>Several people on ETNI have been posing the question of "What is being
> assessed on the Bagrut, intelligence or English".
> The answer to this question must be both. "English" in its purest form as
> a communicative tool is being most highly appraised during the oral
> bagrut.
> Thus, rightly so, these grades tend to be high. It does not require great
> intelligence to speak and understand a language. After all, everybody, no
> matter what their "IQ" level learns how to speak. True, some of us don't
> have a knack for learning languages, but does this necessarily say
> something about our intelligence? I know some many very very bright
> people who have
> never excelled in English or any other second language.
> On the other hand, the bagrut written tests assess English and
> intelligence, at least intelligence in the capacity of a student to infer,
> to read
> between the lines, to weigh the weight of a writer's language, opinions
> and hidden
> agendas. Teaching our students to be critical readers of language is the
> crucial goal of all humanities teachers. As teachers we are trying to
> build discerning, critical thinkers, good and responsible citizens and the
> medium of language is among the best for achieving that goal.
> So yes, the higher tests tend to be quite difficult. But frankly I find
> some of the A test questions to be challenging. This too is how it should
> be. Just because one doesn't have a broad mastery of English, doesn't
> mean that one's intelligence (as a reader of texts) shouldn't be measured.
> Finally, since we are delving so much into the notion of intelligence, I
> think that we would all agree that test taking is not the sole measure of
> intelligence, not by any means. There are emotional, spiritual, artistic,
> business, and physical intelliences (and endless others) that our bagrut
> tests cannot come close to measuring. As teachers we must be sure our
> students know that as individuals they are not equivalent to their bagrut
> grades. To realize the maximum of their "intelligence" they have their
> whole lives before them...
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