[etni] fw: teaching history in English
- From: "Ask" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 18:24:35 +0200
From: "laurie sapir" - <lfs22@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: teaching history in English
Permit me to express my blunt opinion on students learning history (and/or
geography?) in English. I think it's ridiculous.
1. First of all, history is one of the highly verbal subjects: lots to read,
lots to write. What happens to half the student population who are not,
let's say, at a high enough English level? (Would any of us want to study
history, of all things, in a foreign language, especially if we weren't
super fluent?)
2. We are not a bilingual country, like say, Canada. Even there, the success
of French as a language of study and in the workplace (in non-French areas)
is dubious. If anything, why isn't the Ministry considering teaching across
the curriculum in Arabic? That is the second language here.
3. Why should the Hebrew language be given short shrift ? We aren't living
in the U.S., Great Britain, So. Africa or Australia. We are living in
Israel, where efforts to preserve the Hebrew and Arabic languages should
also be of national priority. (unless the Ministry knows something we
don't- are they preparing us for the end of the State?) If there is a desire
to improve the level of English, let's start with higher standards in our
textbooks, more classroom hours, other projects which don't infringe upon
subject domains like history. (Even science classes have much more English
in them - which begs the question again, why history?)
4. Do they really believe that all our English teachers are as good as they
can be in their own field of teaching (teaching English?) Do they really
believe that history teachers will be effective teaching in English? (this
is what I read in the Hebrew document posted - that history teachers would
be sent for courses to improve their English - am I wrong here?) And do we
want students exposed to English of dubious standards, while these same
history teachers would be much less limited language wise, if they could
delve into their subject in their native language?
(And if we are talking about English teachers teaching the history
curriculum, how professional will that really be? Don't get me wrong, I love
bringing historical subjects into my English classes, but on an amatuer
level, as enrichment.) As has been stated by others, it would be great to
coordinate enrichment of topics in our English classes. I have asked history
teachers in the past what they teach at certain grade levels so that I could
bring in extra materials to the English class on those same subjects, and
kids like this additional enrichment.
5. If there is money for a project like this, why isn't there money for more
urgent priorities, such as smaller classrooms, more teaching hours, bringing
back school classes which have been dropped (art, for example)? Isn't that
more important, after the last few years we have suffered through, of
massive budget cuts, massive teacher lay offs, and severe reduction in
classroom hours?
Am I the only one out there that thinks this is totally ridiculous?
Laurie Sapir,
Amakim-Tavor
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