From Miriams' Desk

Dear Fellow Teachers,
I would like to take this opportunity of first wishing you all a very happy and successful school year.

The Year of the Curriculum

This is a very special year thanks to the recent approval of the new English curriculum for schools: "Standards for Pupils of English". An updated draft of the curriculum will be reaching your school shortly.

In-service courses

We will be providing counselling and regional courses for new and experienced teachers. We are holding courses for new teachers, new and experienced coordinators, and for teachers using material from Educational Television. Details of all these courses have been sent to schools and to the homes of the coordinators. All the courses began immediately after Succoth. If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact the office preferably by fax (04-8353714) or by phone (04-8353661/2).

The Oral Bagrut
 

On the 28th August a letter jointly signed by Mrs. Ruth Ortolongi and Mrs. Judy Steiner was sent out to all high schools in the country explaining the policy for the Oral Bagrut examination in 1999. As you can see from the letter, the Oral Bagrut has returned to the format that was adopted in 1997. There will be two stations for the 4 & 5 point Bagrut pupils (internal and external). The internal exam will take place after the Passover holiday during the time that the English teacher is at school and not teaching 12^th grade. The supplementary exam for 3 points will be tested by the English teacher of the class and he/she will be paid as in previous years.

Non-readers

The English Inspectorate of the Haifa Region with the generous help of àâó ùç"ø has taken upon itself to try and minimize the number of pupils that are reaching Junior High School without knowing how to read. This is a serious local and national problem. We are trying to do the best we can to ensure that as many pupils as possible achieve basic reading skills by the end of Elementary School. If you and your schools are involved in projects for non-readers (or in any other projects for that matter) please contact me so that others can hear about what is happening in the region.
 

The next issue of The Grapevine will focus on the central theme for this and next year: "Respect is a Two Way Street". Please send any suggestions or ideas you may have to the office or submit them on-line.

I wish to repeat my best wishes to you all.

Miriam  melamed@carmel.zvulun.k12.il

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Policy for Oral Bagrut Examination

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Feedback on Summer Study Days
 

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Dear Grapey,

I work very closely with a fellow teacher. We decided to give a quiz on vocabulary that had been taught. She wrote the passage and I typed it up. It was obvious to me that I should include a word bank. When I handed the copy to her, she was shocked. A heated debate ensued! She was adamant not to include a word bank, I insisted that it appear. She claimed that she was right and I vehemently disagreed. What is the best way to test vocabulary? Please help us find a way to reach the best compromise and teach effectively.

This is a familiar problem. Many English teachers wonder how they can best test if their pupils have learned the words they taught. We discussed the problem at our "Round Table" and here are some of the suggestions our team came up with:
 
 

In a mixed class, couldn't pupils be given the choice of having or not having the bank?

I think that not using a word bank is simply a test of memory. Not all our pupils can retain and use vocabulary within a specific context and come up with the answers we want. Vocabulary should be used in context.

I think that in some cases a word bank is a very useful idea and in some cases it isn't. It depends on the teacher's goal and the level of the class.

If a word which is filled in suits the context, but is not the word expected by the teacher, credit must be given since the student managed to comprehend the text and supplied a grammatically correct alternative which suits the context.

With or without a word bank, cloze tasks can be very beneficial in making pupils notice discourse features and language constraints providing the texts are written so they have adequate context clues and suit the pupils' level of English.

The question is not whether to provide a word bank, but rather when to do so.

A word bank can be useful if you want to focus attention or limit responses to specific vocabulary or grammatical structures. But don't expect the word bank to replace context clues. Pupils need the clues to find the missing words.

The word bank might actually interfere with comprehension, which relies heavily on memory and retention of the text. Instead of progressing smoothly from line
to line, the reader needs to switch back and forth between the text and the word bank - creating an additional burden to memory capacity. Watch your pupils' eyes to see what I mean.
 

In short, my opinion is:
YES to cloze exercises that pose a reasonable challenge.
MAYBE to word banks under certain circumstances.
NO to exercises that aren't carefully written.

Divide the quiz into two sections - one with a word bank and one without. Once the pupils have taken the quiz, you can then compare the results and either decide on a policy for the future OR continue with the two sections, creating a modular graded quiz.

If a teacher wants to test specific words, puils should do a definition matching exercise and not a cloze exercise. You could add a section for better pupils to write sentences demonstrating the meanings of the words.

Are you testing memory or discourse skills? Why demand exact responses? Shouldn't you have 2 versions in order to cater for heterogeneity?

We hope you found this new column beneficial. Help us make it a regular feature by submitting questions to Grapey.

Send your questions to the office or submit them on-line and we will respond from our "Round Table".

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