[etni] Fw: re: 3 points or not?
- From: "Ask_Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "ETNI" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:25:02 +0300
----- Original Message -----
From: <davidsk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: 3 points or not?
Hi All!
Having been a history major in college and also being in the
English teaching business for 35 years, I would like to give
a short history of the English exams here in Israel.
When I started my career, so many years ago, there was one
level of bagrut in English, which included 10% on literature
on the written exam. This was geared to those who were
planning to enter university. There was another external
exam, part of the Masmar-Alef certificate, that was at the
level of kita Tet at the time. It couldn't be used for
university entrance but many practical engineering schools (
בתי ספר להנדסאים) accepted it. I taught in a vocation
yeshiva where the kids studied electonics and electicity and
we had to make a program and an internal exam for technical
English as well that had to be approved by our local
inspector. Then there was the Masmar certificate with an
internal English exam approved by the local inspector. There
was Masmam and Hechven also but English was only for
improving the kids' status or ego and each school did what
they thought was right for the kids.
The 3 point exam started about the level of kita Yud and was
only one exam (no modules in those days) taken in Yud-Bet.
Later, I was present at a talk by Rafael Gefen, then Chief
English Inspector, where he explained that the Inspectorate
had been putting pressure on the universities for years to
accept the 3 point exam to no avail. They then decided to
lower the standards so more kids could get a teudat bagrut
and it was about the level of kita Het. The modularity came
afterwards.
In the days of Masmar-Alef and Masmar, the kids knew where
they stood before finishing school and afterwards. Kids who
had it in them, could complete their studies to bagrut level
afterwards. (Many of my students did just that.) I
sometimes feel the ministry is deceiving the students as well
as their parents with the present set up. The universities
are complaining about the level of English and (so I hear
from friends who teach on the graduate level) it has reached
graduate school. Hi-Tech companies prefer native speakers
because they have to fire so many Israelis whose English is
not sufficient. I wonder if they have lowered standards for
medical school as well.
I hope that this has clarified some things for some people
and maybe some day we can get back to really teaching
English language.
Dovid Skolnick
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