[etni] The NBA feud
- From: Mitzi Geffen <mitzi1002001@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 03:49:34 -0700 (PDT)
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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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