[etni] Fw: re: Intelligence or English

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janette Segal" <janjon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Intelligence or English


Hi David
I must say it is quite a pleasure to engage in these intellectual debates in 
our native language! {if I had to do this in Hebrew it would be a different 
story} I taught EFL in university for over 10 years to students who didn't 
get enough points in their psychometric in English- so they needed to have 
extra courses in English. In my view, the goal and the materials used in 
these university EFL classes were excellent. Students - often of four and 
five points Bagrut- were given lengthy academic articles in English to 
read -the focus was on teaching them skills- how to quickly understand -main 
idea-supporting details- global reading of a text- as well as close reading 
of a test-in which they were given a few paragraphs{ about five} from the 
article and they were asked also main idea-supporting ideas. Students needed 
also to be aware of sequencing, comparing and contrasting ideas. The final 
test met these objectives. The lucky teacher knew exactly what to teach- how 
to teach it and the test {written by some of the teachers} was never a 
surprise. The students were taught skills that were very beneficial for 
their university courses- they became more confident readers of English.  So 
can we learn something from all this? - The delight of writing and reading 
intelligent mail? Perhaps sadly nothing else.
Best  Janette


David Hyatt wrote:
>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.

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