[etni] The NBA feud

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Hi all,
    Avi's mention of the silent pro-NBAers moved me to write, as I have been 
watching the letters go by and once again getting irritated at those who would 
speak for all of us when they are expressing their own opinions. I think that 
the success of any system, book, course, etc. depends very much on the attitude 
of the teacher teaching it. I love teaching English through projects. I 
"collect" common grammar mistakes and spend a few minutes of each lesson 
explaining the grammar point in question. The kids do the entire project during 
class hours and I move around the class reading draft paragraphs and pointing 
out mistakes in grammar and/or word usage. We do the projects one stage at a 
time and I think a lot of teaching and learning goes on. Many more students are 
involved with English much more of the time than when I primarily used 
textbooks for teaching. Another difference is that we're all having a much 
better time now. 
       I think that it's not accurate to say that kids don't learn English from 
doing projects or from using textbooks. It all depends on how one uses the 
textbooks or projects to teach English. I think it also helps to bring the 
issue of learning English up with the kids before, during and after they do the 
projects. "How can you improve your English by doing this? How can you expand 
your vocabulary? Are you paying attention to the kinds of mistakes you make and 
trying to use the proper structure the next time?" etc. I think it's important 
to get them to understand that our goal in having them do their projects is not 
mainly to learn more about earthquakes or Mozart or nutrition or whatever they 
choose as their topic, but rather to learn how to function at a high level in 
English.
      On the other hand, I would like to see the bagrut test English 
proficiency rather than IQ as it seems to do ,at least in the upper modules. I 
think we would see a much higher percentage of high grades if we tested 
straight reading comprehension (or even access to information!) as well as 
accurate and fluent production of English. I also wish there were some way to 
pilot the exam to see whether it is reliable, rather than waiting to see if 
there are particular questions that most of the kids taking the exam get wrong. 
       In short, no system is perfect, but I think that if we had a reliable, 
reasonable test, we'd see that the curriculum changes are positive and 
effective.
            Mitzi Geffen
          



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