englishboosters

Everyone has dreams. Dreams of what they aspire to be. Dreams of what they want to accomplish. Dreams of places they want to arrive at. But many times, their aspirations and goals remain just distant dreams, seemingly unattainable. I always aspired to be an English teacher, many people tried to put me off. They said that it is too hard for a native Israeli to teach English, and more so that for a young girl like me, it will be almost impossible to control a rowdy group of today's kids who are not interested in learning a second language. But, I held on to my dreams, I knew I could do it and didn’t let anyone put a dampner on my hopes. Standing before my first class of 6 th grade boys, where some boys looked like they wanted to be  anywhere but in the classroom, I felt my confidence ebbing I started thinking that everybody was right and that I could not do this. Was I crazy for taking this job?   But after a minute, I regained my composure. I breathed in and ...

I want to share with you a very interesting experience I had last week. I observed a fourth grade double lesson at Eitan School. Eitan School is a special elementary  school which has a language immersion program. The school is situated in my neighborhood Armon Hanatsiv. Each student gets 10 hours of English learning lessons a week. Four hours of English language is taught and there is  .usually an additional subject taught in English such as science or math When I entered the classroom the first thing I noticed was that there were two teachers, Leah and Tamar. I also noticed how the class was divided into four groups according to level, for this reason the number of students per group differed. Each teacher was in charge of two groups. I sat next to Tamar, therefore I watched her specifically. There was a group of three strong English Speakers who read the same book for about twenty minutes, while Tamar worked with the weaker group, which was a group of eight Students. ...

7 Ways to View Grammar Some teachers suffer from obsessive grammar syndrome. These teachers have different perspectives on how to view grammar. This paper will provide seven of these views. Grammar as rules We use must+ be+ verb+ ing to say that something that is in progress at or around the time of speaking is logically necessary or that we suppose it to be certain. The sentence the blackbird must be flying is an example of this rule, and an example of why this rule may not be useful to the learner. The learners may struggle to understand some of the grammar rules. Therefore the teachers should not expect the students to be able to apply all of the rules. Several rules are simply impractical for a student’s daily life. Grammar as structures This rule has the teacher look at grammar in its simple form rather than look at its meaning or function. The idea is to practice the form so that you will be able to use it. Fries believed that “To learn a new language one must estab...

Let's be creative! Don't you feel that you are sometimes sick and tired of monotonous teaching? Imagine then what your students feel! We need to use a variety of activities in the classroom in order to be able to adapt a coursebook to the needs of students, to design materials and activities matching specific classes. We know that some people are more creative than others. Anyway, we need to combine typical activities and create the new ones to motivate our students. Here are some examples of regular activities: group roleplay, reading aloud, internet searching, describing, multiple-choice exercises, filling in missing words, peer correction, sequencing etc. We can combine, e.g. group roleplay and reading aloud, internet searching and training words through specific sites such as "quizlet" and "הכתבה", reading aloud and sequencing. While teaching students "describing", I often use "a snowball head" exercise. The training should be...

Don’t you hate those in-service training courses for teachers? It’s really great to learn some new tips, but who invented all those graded final assignments ? Just imagine, you are a busy teacher in the middle of the never ending process of planning, pre-planning, re-planning, test grading, parents' meetings,  answering phone calls, messaging, e-mailing and in the middle of all that you are supposed to hand in a short piece of something, just something, no matter what.    All your traumatic school experience with tons of obligatory homework blocks your mind. Your brain announces a termless strike. Noooo!!! The deadline approaches, the deadline passes and, nothing to do, you should, you have to, you must. Ok. Once upon a time… I was four, when My mom (R.I.P.) decided to teach me reading. It was not easy at all. I wasn't a little genius. No matter how hard I tried, nothing moved forward.  One day my Mom lost her patience and called me stupid. I took offenc...

בס"ד Scott Thornbury: 7 ways of looking at grammar Scott Thornbury lectured on the seven theories of teaching grammar. He says that although there are many other ways, these seven are the main ones and that he would be focusing on these. I deal with each of these in the order of presentation.  1. Grammar as rules- English teachers are very familiar with this method; it focuses on learning grammar through the presentation and practice of rules. For example, add -s/es to the Verb in the 3rd person singular in the Simple Present. 2. Grammar as structures- Parrot-like, the pupil repeats over and over again the "grammatical structures" taught to him. Here, the meaning of the utterance is not the main thing. The example that Scott gives is a somewhat unrealistic sentence "this is my head" designed purely for learning the correct structure 3. Grammar as mathematics- The theory needs the English language teacher to teach in the same way ...

Teaching is a profession that requires the teacher to renew himself or herself all the time. I think that especially today, students are looking for the fresh, the experience, the variety and the game. Many teachers make the mistake of thinking that perhaps this is not a profession enough to be a "teacher of experience". I wonder, maybe it's easier to think that the game and the fun belong to the enrichment courses. It is much less challenging for the teacher teaching from textbooks and notebooks, especially teachers with many years of experience who familiar with the curriculum and textbooks very well. l I believe a teacher who teaches the same material for many years, may find himself or herself in an incessant routine. I am sure that students feel the "spirit" in which the teacher enters and teaches in class. The teacher's mood, feelings and desires are automatically transferred to the students. When the teacher does not connect, he or she does not ...

Teaching English as a Hebrew Speaker I have always wondered regarding the use of Hebrew as a native language in the English teaching process in my classes. obviously, there are advantages and disadvantages of using a mother tongue in teaching a foreign language, however I found that most teachers perceive the use of Hebrew in teaching English as an advantage and few see the disadvantages. Nevertheless, they tend to perceive themselves as "sinners" when Hebrew moves in to the classroom, even through the "back door". As an elementary school teacher, I usually use Hebrew when I teach grammatical and semantic stractures, as well as various fields of classroom management. I realized that it helps them understand the rules, think about the comparison with their language and apply the rules quickly.

HOW I DECIDED TO BECOME A TEACHER I was born in Moscow. At the age of seven I entered a regular elementary/secondary school. When we were in the 4th grade our administration decided to change the status of the school. So, it became a Special English school. My parents had to make a decision whether to continue or to change the school, my father knew German, my mother - French. And my grandmother spoke Yiddish. Nobody knew English, we didn't have any digital tools at that time, they were afraid that they would not be able to help me. But I was an excellent pupil and they decided to take a risk and rely on me and the teachers who persuaded them to let me stay. It was a hard school period because we had to pass the programme of three years in one year. But we succeeded. Our young English teachers were so nice, so professional, the lessons were so interesting that I fell in love with English and with a profession. At the age of 11 I had no doubt that I would become a teacher. ...

We have a big English staff at my school. We are supposed to write together the English tests as the principal wants all the classes to take the same exams according to different levels. I do not know why but the same members of the staff always work hard while others do not contribute anything to the joint effort. For the last two years, every time I write a test, I swear that this is the last time that I let some of the teachers dodge this exhausting task. A few weeks ago, all of our students were supposed to be tested immediately after Hannukah. I knew that I would not have time to write 5 professional exams in 2 days. Therefore, during the Hannukah break, some of us worked for hours every single day on the tests. I came back to school terribly tired and frustrated to find out in the staff meeting that some of the indifferent teachers complained about a competitive atmosphere among the staff. Apparently, we disturbed them during the break when we asked them to write some of the...

Bs"d Our Life - Sometimes I wonder to myself, Does the life race let me live my real life? Doesn’t it prevent me to experience the beautiful world that God created? At the end of the day I often ask myself, what have I done today? Waking up and rushing to work, finish this and that and have to run to the supermarket to buy a few products for lunch that I am going to cook, not before I pick up my kids from the kindergarten. We are getting home when there is always something to do, especially when the kids are up, and just after they had supper and went to sleep I sink into the couch, falling asleep with a thinking that I have so many things to do else… And today, I thought of it deeper than ever. Do I look at my day as 24 hours mission that has to get to the end, or do I enjoy and live every moment, appreciating the gifts g-d gives me ?! I am twenty-five years and have so much responsibility. My job is my family's livelihood, and house chores will never end. Everyth...

I was born in a a small village  of less than three hundred  people , who were  relatives . Until the beginning of the 1990s  there were no modern roads to the village . Also the nearest village was 5 km away .  We didn't have schools or kindergarten and no transportation .As a result , we had to walk 5km in the morning to get to school and another five going back home . In Winter it  was rainy , muddy and cold .   In Summer it was too hot at noon . That was Elementary and Junior High school . For High school we had to  go   to the next town . Girls were not allowed to go to High School They had to stay at home and wait for a husband to come .  When I finished 9th grade I couldn't bear the thought of leaving school . My parents are uneducated , my father worked in constructions and my mother is a housewife . I have four sisters and eight brothers , which made it financially more difficult . But they were very supportive and un...