[etni] New Lit Module + ETAI Conference

From: Harold and Evrea Bergstein <harold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:42:21 +0300
I enjoyed seeing old friends and participating in some inspiring sessions at 
ETAI this year.  We sorely missed someone like Raquel Azran for the 
Native-Speaker teachers but thanks to Philippa for the impromptu grassroots 
session held in the lunch break which was attended by over 40 teachers!!   Many 
thanks to the organizers of the ETAI conference who worked so hard over this 
past year.
Regarding the new Lit Module, I was a bit taken aback by the one-sided approach 
to the moderated roundtable at the end of the conference.  I think it's best 
not to avoid the "cons" as a new program is being formulated so that changes 
can be made.  I welcome the focus on literature in high school as my B.A. and 
M.A. are both in English Literature and Writing and we have always had a strong 
literature program at L'Yada (where I have taught for over 10 years).  I am 
DISMAYED  (as are many other veteran teachers with a literature background) at 
the lack of academic reasoning and background research that has supported the 
decision to test terminology on the new F lit exam.  I would appreciate being 
informed of research that demonstrates the advantages of this regimented 
criticial thinking approach, and for L2 and not L1.  Nowhere in any U.S. high 
school textbook for L1, are students expected to produce terminology and 
identify specific HOTS that they are using to answer test quest
 ions. 

I believe that metacognition and helping students focus on techniques is a 
positive thing, and not labor-intensive, but I am skeptical about any program 
which focuses on forms and terminology (as its goal).  I found it interesting 
that most of the pilot program teachers chose to do the reading log (which 
allows freedom of choice of texts and does not demand terminology production by 
the students under test conditions).  I do hope that the designers of the 
program will consider elminating that onerous and unusual requirement from the 
exam.  I agree completely with Dr. Glenda Sacks, who did the pilot program this 
year, and wrote in her article for the Etai Forum:

    I wondered whether teaching the students these nebulous skills would have 
detracted from the fierce emotion and insightful interpretations that emerged 
as a result of their interactive role-play. Prescribing fine distinctions 
between thinking skills which clearly overlap, risks confusing our students. 
Teachers will have a difficult time trying to distinguish among very obviously 
blurred categories, while students will become distracted from the primary 
lliterary text with its rewards, and fixated instead on finding the "correct" 
thinking skill.

If the Ministry trusts its English teachers to introduce this new program, 
trust us to teach the skills without demanding that students produce the 
terminology.  

Of course it stands to reason that in introducing a new literature module, 
teachers should be compensated for taking required hishtalmiyot and internal 
testers (via the log) for Module F should be fairly paid for their work.  

I look forward to an ongoing dialogue,
Evrea Ness-Bergstein 


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[etni] New Lit Module + ETAI Conference

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