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Ministry of Education English Inspectorate English Teachers
Prize 2008 Runner up – Name of Initiative: Bringing the outside
in. Grade: Mostly high school, but not exclusively. Description of the initiative To Dream: My approach to teaching has been directed (almost
unconsciously) by the sense that discovering the key to student motivation is
what is most valuable in teaching. I realized way back that if I could
motivate real interest on the part of my students, they were more than half
the way to success. In the rather grey, day-to-day routine of school teaching,
this is not an easy task but worth the effort. Ironically, the drive to
engage my students has been my own salvation; it has motivated me and kept me
enthusiastic about the profession. Those common symptoms of teacher burn-out that we all
know so well, seem to have appeared less often than they otherwise might
have. To Dare: Over the years I have developed "projects" –
used here in the broadest sense of the word and not specifically with the
meaning it has come to have as a curriculum requirement. The idea is to break
from the routine with an intensive activity or set of activities which are
usually a little more demanding than usual, provide some form of choice,
require creativity and deal with either a subject the pupils are naturally
interested in, or on the other hand, they know very little about. I often
come to an idea almost by chance: a song on the radio while driving might
trigger an idea, a movie I have seen, a site on the net I have stumbled upon
and very often a spin off from what some another teacher has done. Once the
idea has germinated, I then carefully break it down into components which can
be practically implemented in school and "write it up"
. I like to divide tasks into specific stages. One of the most
important stages is the first lesson in which the whole idea is made clear to
the pupils. The purpose of this stage is on the one hand to excite, enthuse
and challenge them and on the other to make sure they know exactly what is
expected of them. Once the project has
worked, I upload the details onto my site www.oocities.org/jackpillemer
(which is now full) and more recently onto the Mae Boyar School English site www.schooly.co.il/boyer_english for other
teachers to download and use as is, or adapt to their specific needs. To Do: I am not able to describe all the initiatives I have
taken in detail. They vary in nature, length, content and seriousness. I will list some of them
and describe the main ideas briefly. For more detail you could browse the two
sites mentioned above. E-mail correspondence project For the past 3 years I have run an email correspondence project for my
pupils in 12th grade between Boyar and Virtual Visitor Project – a letter
from abroad This project was decided upon because it is simple to
carry out but has unlimited potential for English teaching. It is intended
for Elementary and Junior High school pupils in the central The Lyrics Project This project, which requires students to do numerous
tasks based on the lyrics of a song, succeeded for me and then succeeded for
teachers throughout English through Art Trying a similar format to the above I created the "English through Art" project http://www.oocities.org/jackpillemer/art.htm which is very demanding and not suitable for everyone but potentially enriching. I have used it 6 times. Some pupils have thanked me for exposing them to the world of art while others have wondered why I was pushing them to handle material which was not specifically English. The Picture Project (largely based on a very similar project written by Ora Baumgarten) http://www.schooly.co.il/ boyer_english/boyer_english This is new and so far and it has worked well. Pupils choose a photograph, describe it in detail, do research on the people who appear, the background, the photographer etc. and finally do some of their own creative work in response. Compared to other projects, the demands on the pupil are lower but still maintains the key elements I mentioned above. Romeo and Juliet My most ambitious decision was to find a way to move away from All My Sons and teach Romeo and Juliet to Grade 11 and 12 5 point pupils in regular classes. I chose Romeo and Juliet and it took me over a year to get ready. I chose 5-6 key scenes and prepared them in a booklet with a glossary. I added activities to each scene, some connected with Shakespeare and literature and others which merely used the scenes as springboard for other English language learning. Then I interwove the program into two films of the play, one more traditional and one very modern (starring Leonardo Dicaprio). The films provide the plot between the texts I chose for intensive study, and they tie the whole experience together. Then I created a site for myself, for the pupils and for anyone else to use this material. http://www.etni.org/teachers/jack/master.htm The site contains many elements including a detailed description for teachers how to tackle the project and a multi task project to follow the process. Numerous schools and teachers have informed me that they are using or have used these materials. The Dead Poets' Society The Dead Poets' Society (starring Robin Williams) is a
film which is entertaining, thought- provoking and contains a lot of poetry.
Sue Kerman and I identified the poems and then found the full texts and used
the film and the poems to teach some of the Bagrut
literature program. http://www.etni.org.il/deadpoet.htm English Talk Club This initiative is only in the planning stage. The idea
is to have monthly visitors – regular folk who have something interesting to
share (e.g what goes on at the zoo behind the
scenes) - to come and talk to the pupils at Boyar in English . I plan
it to be open to whoever is interested irrespective of age. Support Needed for Carrying Out Initiative As must be obvious from above, I enjoy sharing ideas.
It's a two-way street: I give and I receive. Advice for Teachers I would advise teachers to fight with all that it takes
to avoid getting into a rut, not to be afraid of the consequences of doing
something new and not to fear breaking the accepted patterns. I would advise
teachers to look for ways to "bring the outside world into the
classroom" from time to time in order to supplement the teaching of the
basic skills and strategies of language learning. And finally, I would advise
teachers to share what they do with others. Reflection What did the students get out of it? What did you get out of it? I have been teaching for a long time and still have a
long time to go. Like everyone else in the profession I have my ups and downs
my successes my failures. I manage to give some students the push they need
to take off and others fall through my fingers and there are
some, no doubt, I miss completely. That's par for the course for all of us, I
suppose. I need the changes and challenges as much as my pupils
do to keep me motivated, and that explains why I wander off the
straight and narrow path from time to time. Generally my pupils bear with me,
forgive me or come along for the ride. |
