----- Original Message ----- From: byk - byk@xxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: English teachers and money Dear Teachers, Sometimes, reading the discussions about literature and the necessity for extra pay, I feel like laughing, before I cry. What about projects, extensive reading, book reports, and the enormous amount of extra work generated by the modular bagrut, not to mention the work involved in dealing with LD students (for which some sort of solution seems to be on the way)? And all this in 4 hours, gross, per week. How many hours net? How many hours are you supposed to teach? How many hours do you lose? I reckon as many as 1/4. Work it out. Present it to Ran Erez. When I taught in the system, teachers from other disciplines often asked me why I had to do so much preparation for lessons. Their comments went something lke this : " I did all my preparation in my first year of teaching, and have never had to prepare another lesson since!!" However, I see another problem with all these extra activities, and that is the damage they are doing to systematic learning of the language. Yes, I hear your gasps of horror that I should think that these things detract rather than enhance the learning of the language. Well, I see it from the perspective of private tutoring. I see that many of the students I tutor are unable to deal with many of these things by themselves, and I am teaching generally strong students in the centre of the country, not in the periphery, as is my colleague Esther. I see that students from 10th grade on are losing the skills they acquired in Junior High. NO, I am not blaming the teachers, but a system which starts pushing Bagrut in the 10th grade, often to the exclusion of other subjects. Many students are simply unable to cope with all the extra work in English, so they take "short cuts". (copy paste internet articles, watching the films of books which are often on too high a level for them to enjoy, etc. Trying to squeeze too much into what boils down to a measly 3 weekly hours damages the acquisiition of language skills much needed after school. Pupils who read, read, and improve all their skills enormously. But how many do? How many will change their bad reading habits in Junior Hich and High School, if they haven't acquired them through good training in Elementary School. Far be it from me to denigrate the teaching of literature and reading for pleasure. I love literature and am a voracious reader, and I can allow myself the luxury of encouraging this in my pupils who are taught one on one. And I'm sure that teachers who teach all that the curriculum demands are doing a wonderful job. However, I see these same students in college and university, and many of them have not acquired a level of English that I would expect from the number of hours allocated since 1st grade to 12th grade. Enough. Everybody is probably n holiday, and won't see this rant anyhow. Jennifer ----------------------------------------------- ** Etni homepage - http://www.etni.org or - http://www.etni.org.il ** ** for help - ask@xxxxxxxx ** ** to post to this list - etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** -----------------------------------------------