[etni] Sharing tips

From: renee wahl <renew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:01:23 +0200
Hi,
First of all I'll register my  VERY strong objection to the Lit test in
general.

I believe that teaching HOTS in English is NOT our job.

The students are NOT learning thinking skills, except if you want to call
how to answer exam questions thinking skills (by the way, more useful that
what we claim to be teaching them, which if they haven't worked out for
themselves by grade 11, is never going to be learned).

I believe the Lit exam should be dropped (That would free Ministry budgets
of millions -teaching hours, developing tests, testing, books and put that
money to good in reducing class size, etc).  If you want to test Lit, do it
with one question on the D or G exam instead of the composition.

 

The Lit program is taking up all of my class time and I am not able to teach
anything else (the kids won't let me even if I try) in the 11th & 12th
grades.  No holiday or special events material, no interesting articles, no
values, etc.  Just to make things plain, I teach very intelligent and
ambitious 5 pointers.  How you 4 point teachers manage is a bad fairy tale.

 

The Lit program is taking up all of my preparation time.  It takes forever
to prepare a Matkoet (unless you give them the questions or tests right out
of the lit program books or previous exams, to which they learn the answers
by rote).  It has taken me more than 12 hours to correct and comment on the
exams of my 25 12th graders.  My 11th graders are doing the log, checking of
which keeps me (and them) constantly busy for 2 years.

 

Here are my tips:

1.      Tell the kids not to learn the answers by heart.  The questions will
be different and the answers won't fit (no brainer, but that's what they do.
They think one size fits all)

2.      Tell them to prefer any HOTS over Inferring, which is the hardest
HOTS to prove.

3.      Mark the key words (and especially the PLURAL S) in each question:
AND, TWO, WHY, WHO.  They get so carried away finding and writing about an
example that they forget to add the second example the question is calling
for.

4.      There is no time to go back over the answers to correct mistakes in
grammar.  I tell my students to start by marking the question, then write
notes as to content & examples in the margin (can be in Hebrew), and only
then to compose their answer in English very slowly, checking subject/verb
agreement, tense, a/an/the, capital letters, conditional, etc as they write.

5.      Setting = time + place     Any question about setting must include
answers for each part.

6.      Learn key words to use in your answers.  Conflict, dilemma, values,
ethics, moral dilemma, etc. 

 

Tips for teachers:

1.      Forget about teaching English in grades 11 and 12 if you teach the
lit program as instructed.

2.      If you want to have time to teach English,  just teach them how to
answer HOTS questions, tell the kids to watch the movies on YouTube or on
video (80% of my kids won't read at home and won't listen in class for more
than 15 minutes if you read to them or they read to each other), and MAYBE
discuss in class.

3.      If you're doing the LOG, let them start the work in class, when the
period is over and they've written only 2 lines, let them finish the work at
home or with their private teachers.  Don't make the mistake of checking
their work from time to time.  According to the instructions, you need to
grade only ONE task, the Summative Assessment and check that all tasks are
included.

 

Good luck to us all!

Renee Wahl

 



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[etni] Sharing tips

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