----- Original Message -----
From: "Tami Nakkar" - <tami18@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: an interdisciplinary approach
since they're talking about teaching other subjects in English, you might want to find out what they teach in History and Geography and see what you can do in your classroom. I know there's a unit on Revolution in Fast Forward (9th grade book) and they study French / American revolution that year.
Tami
I believe students should be studying History, Geography etc. in Hebrew. This is our beautiful ancient holy language. However, since English is the language used all over the world for communication, study and research, I think it would be a good idea for the other subject teachers to "use" the English teachers to enrich the students. For example, if there's an important article in English about a topic being studied in History, the History teacher should ask the English teacher to "teach" that article in the English lesson. The English teacher can decide whether to make the article a reading comprehension practice (and prepare appropriate questions); whether it should be read at home and discussed in class (oral presentation); whether students should translate it into Hebrew (each group of students will translate a paragraph); whether both the English and the History teachers will give a combined lesson relating to the article both in English and in Hebrew (I'd say during
the History lesson. Shouldn't be at our "expense"). Finally, there must be a combined assessment both of content (History) and of language (English) so the students take it seriously. This has been my dream for years - an interdisciplinary approach. I did it once with a Biology teacher. My students understood the article much better than me, so they ended up teaching me the subject matter. They loved it, and so did I!
True, this can only be done when the students in the History class are the same ones who attend the English class.
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