The 'Schwatz Family'

You are about to read a review but not of another mainstream film, the kind that makes a minimum of half a billion dollars, because I have got style ;) and also because I saw The Schwatz Family. Is this the best series in the world or what?

Not so long ago (last year), right under our noses, a crazy cult series emerged on YouTube with… 2 episodes, and the third is coming.

This series has the potential that I have not seen in the Israeli landscape for a long time. Strong influences of 'Rick and Morty', gross performances like 'Ren and Stimpe' , a touch of 'Anima' and a great portion of ​​emotion.

I am talking about feelings and punctuality in the love for these amazing characters and family. I do not remember when I last came across a family on the screen that I feel so connected to after two short episodes. It is not something to take for granted in a genre with so much nonsense.

The creators are Asaf and Dean. And… I have nothing more to say about them.

Well now, this series is not perfect, it still needs some arrangements to fulfill its true potential. But hey there, it's a two-episode series that only two people make, so, show some respect. Compare to it, 'Rick and Morty' looked like 'La Linea'.

In the pilot episode, you'll see that groundwork is laid for the characters and their traits, which is amazing in my opinion but there is no story; you'll see two unrelated scenes which tell the stories about the father. In the second episode, you see something more mature, there is a cool story, which gives us a glimpse of the lovely dynamics of the family. The transition from the pilot without a story to a second episode with a dramatic structure shows how the creators of the series are developing and hopefully soon episode 3 is going to be a MASTERPIECE.

Now the only problem with the series is pacing. I know they are artists: writing, thinking, storyboarding, narrating, animating. However, it is not fast enough, my dear ones. I do not think they understand what they have. When you nail it, as they did, you go the extra mile. Leave your jobs, move back with mom and dad, make 14 episodes in a year, drink 100 cups of black coffee starting at 5 A.M. It is not a hobby. They should want to make a business from it.

If they take a chance, take a loan from the bank, leave the past behind, remove the mediocre way of thinking, increase the frequency of the outgoing chapters, maintain the same standards and will not sell themselves short. Pay attention! They should not sell themselves short! They will be the 'Ren and Stimpe' of Israel. They will sell it abroad, will be awarded prizes, make lots of money, people will see their advertisement.

The best of luck to Dean and Asaf.

Hey everyone.

Five years ago, my brother got married in the U.S.A , so we had a great opportunity to be there  together the whole family for two weeks. I come  from a large family (11 children ) so it is something that hardly ever happens.  

We arrived in NY two days and a half before the wedding, and the day after we already were on our way to the Niagara Falls in the north. We set off New York early in the morning and started our journey.

The drive to the Niagra takes ten hours. Although we had some hard moments such as a crying baby or a annoying sister-in-law, it was a great experience. It is something that I will never forget. I had another chance to see how wonderful my family is. We laughed a lot and enjoyed ourselves.

Finally, after ten hours stuck in the car, we reached our destination. We were amazed by the stunning beauty of the place, and of course, we took many pictures. and then, when it became darker and colder, we looked for a motel. My stingy family looked for the cheapest motel in the area and did not want to spend another one penny than needed. We ended up staying there for another day. On the way back we were all tired but satisfied. 

Footvolley

I would like to share with you a type of sport I was recently introduced to and fell in love with immediately called Footvolley. Although I don’t play it myself, I find it fascinating to watch because it combines two of my favorite things in life; sports and the beach.

The game of footvolley was created by Octavio de Moraes in 1965, on the beach of Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The idea of footvolley was originally emerged due to the fact that football was banned on the beach at that time, but volleyball courts were open. In order to skip that rule, players were using anything but their hands to pass the ball from one side of the volleyball net to the other. Thus, a new type of sport was created. Basically speaking, footvolley combines aspects of beach volleyball and ball-touch rules taken from association football. It is played on a beach volleyball field, in teams of two players only. The players are to pass the football using any part of their bodies except for their hands. Since the sport`s inception in Brazil, footvolley has spread and gained popularity all over the world. Tournaments and international events of the game have been taking place since the early 00`s.

In 2003, two Brazilian football players who were playing in Israeli teams first introduced the game to some of their Israeli friends on the beaches of Tel Aviv. The locals immediately fell in love with the game and the rumor started to spread around the city slowly but surely. Corona beer company was the first to initiate a series of sponsored footvolley tournaments in Israel back in 2007. The success of the tournaments led Corona to create the first Israeli footvolley league which exists to this very day. The league takes place annually during the summer and is broadcasted in the Israeli sport channels. Since 2018, there is also a female league of Israeli footvolley. In addition, the first Israeli footvolley school for teenage players is about to be opened soon. The game is played mostly in Tel Aviv beaches such as Frishman and Gordon, to which people can come and watch the games freely.

To conclude, I encourage you all to come and watch footvolley games during the summer. The games are engaging, the players are impressive and the atmosphere at the beach is priceless.

A Musical "Nature Reserve" for Folk-Music Lovers – in Tel Aviv!

Twice a month, a group of middle-aged (and plus) people gather,

not for a bingo evening but for an evening of LIVE folk music, their island of sanity in the midst of turbulent waters of everyday life and reality.

The venue itself is as far from a musical club as a giraffe is from the beach but only in appearance. Once the audience settles down, they let themselves listen and breathe in live folk music in the widest variety of the word, be it British Isles folk and ballads, or American 60s, Blues, Jazz, Folk-Rock or World music. They breathe the music in and become 16 or 20 all over again! This event, called The Tel Aviv
Folk Club, has been running for almost 40 years, most of them in
Bikurey Ha'Itim Center (until it was pulled down to be rebuilt as a school)
and in recent years in Mo'adon Avivim in Ramat Aviv.

So what brings people twice a month to Ramat Aviv, from Jerusalem, and even from Pardes Hanna or from as far as Har Halutz in the north?

Love of music, a sense of community and a variety!
Nostalgia too, but not only, since many musicians are young and even
unknown (until the first time they appear for us) and much of the music
is original. In one evening you hear 4 different musicians (including duos,
trios or bands, mostly unamplified) who transport you to the 60s of your
youth, to a smoky Blues club and to Brazil or Africa…for just 30 shekels.
In one evening you meet musicians and hear from them about the music
they sing or write, you hum along and sometimes harmonize, and
of course, you meet your friends.

And what brings musicians, young or older, to The Tel Aviv Folk Club,
where they sing and play for no payment? The warm and supportive
audience, even if not large, the fact that musicians are being listened to
and not just regarded as background music while trying to overcome
chattering voices and coffee machines in cafes or pubs. They can try out
their new material on us without the fear of tomatoes being thrown at them.
Musicians love this friendly community and family which welcomes them
with open arms, ears and hearts.

The downside is the décor which is a little too sterile and the fact that
there is no cafeteria in the place. That costs the folk club some new
audience members who would have attended, had there been beer
they could sip while listening.

Why would I recommend The Tel Aviv Folk Club, just as I would
recommend its sibling establishments the Karmi'el Folk Club and
the Jerusalem Folk Music Evenings? Because you gain all the 'perks'
of good music, close proximity, friends and community, for a small
admission fee and free parking(!) and you suffer none of the
aches and pains caused by loud amplification, peripheral noise

and high price of a concert with or without food.

You may come nervous or tired but you leave calm, happy, content
and rejuvenated, having reached the fountain of youth and good music!

" A girl on a train" - Just sit down and enjoy the ride...

I've heard about this book from some facebook groups I'm in and I've wanted to read this book for a long time and just couldn't find the time for it. Finally, I've got it from my younger sister and started to read it during Passover vacation.

This book is very interesting and tricky but I've got to say that it takes a few turns of pages to fall in love with. It starts with the main character "Rachel Watson" who rides the commuter rail to and from London every day for work. she gazes outside the window and imagines the perfect lives of a couple she sees every day in their own apartment while riding the train. one day she notices something else, she sees another feminine figure with the husband while his wife is gone missing...

This is one of these books that doesn't catch your attention at the very beginning but I highly recommend keep reading through the first quarter although it has a boring routine of train traveling. Once you've passed this part in the book I can assure you would not want to put it down.

 I would like to share with you an amazing experience I had experienced some years ago. More than that, I would like to share an insight of a-24-year-old, inspired by that experience. This post is about had a journey from New York to Florida.

      Today, after traveling for nineteen hours from New York to Florida in a car with five children including two babies, I know that everything is possible. Then, I was sure that I would never get to my destination.

      The first three hours were o.k. There were movies, nosh and good music which created a kind of serenity in the car. But When "Home Alone" was played for the fifth time, I felt I lost my head. I just wanted to scream "stopppppppppppp" but I couldn't.

       At some point, I did not know where to put myself; I didn’t find a place to stretch my legs, a place to lean my head and a place to pull my hands. I just asked myself: "What I am doing here? This journey is the worst mistake ever."

      I was on the brink of crying. The knowledge of the experience I would have in Florida calmed me down. Moreover, the knowledge of the descriptions that my friends were going to hear made me proud. Somehow, I survived until the car arrived at the destination. The week we spent in Orlando was worth it.

On a personal note, you may giggle, why she is making such a big deal, but for me, such a long journey provided an inspiration. Go ahead! Blow your own horn!

Do not forget-

You can do everything.

The impossible in most cases, is possible.

Be proud of yourself.

Life is too short to wear boring clothes. (I put this sticker on my clothes go for it too!)

Celebrate in Israel but feel like in Japan. Barak Zluf

Kisu is my favorite hangout, conveniently located in a small shopping center in Kiryat Ono, near my house. Many friends of mine also like to eat there. The first time I went there was a year ago. I was there with my family to celebrate my mother’s birthday. When we arrived at 8 p.m., it was crowded and a lot of people were waiting. By looking at the people we could understand it is a kind of a place that everyone would go to, like families, a group of friends and even couples for their first date. While we were waiting for our table, the hostess offered us cold lemonade to make the wait more pleasant. The restaurant serves authentic Asian cuisine, so when we were seated each of us chose a different wok dish, and they were all delicious. We also ordered Sushi for starters, which is their specialty. If you are not a sushi fan, I suggest you order the “Nams” dish instead as a starter. It’s a Vietnamese egg-roll filled with your choice of vegetables or chicken, served with crunchy iceberg lettuce and mid-spicy sauce. The rolls were big enough, fresh, light and not greasy, as you usually get in other places. It was outstanding and definitely the best thing on the menu. The dishes we ordered were delicious and reasonably priced.

As I mentioned above, we were celebrating a birthday party so obviously we had to get some drinks. Unfortunately the drinks and cocktails were overpriced and the variety wasn’t as wide as described online. If you have your favorite bottle of wine at home, I think you should bring it with you and pay only 35 shekels for the corkage fee. That would solve the problem.

The service was fast, and the food arrived very quickly. We didn’t have a set waiter, they were all nice and happy to help, kept eye contact, were patient and well dressed in kimono, a traditional Japanese outfit. Overall, we made a good choice. We also had very tasty, though not exactly low-fat, desserts. While we were eating our delicious meal, a nice quiet music was playing in the background. The stylish interior was absolutely beautiful and very modern, designed with wooden floor, big wooden tables, central bar with concrete wall behind and Japanese wall arts. Even the restroom is spotlessly clean.

To conclude, we enjoyed the atmosphere, both the adults and the young kids. We enjoyed every bite, even though the drinks didn't meet the expectations. Overall It’s well worth paying a visit! I suggest you make a reservation ahead if you don’t want to wait.

Relax and Enjoy the Ride

Have you considered where to travel next? Visit Austria and you will never regret it! In this article I will share with you my unforgettable experience of touring around this beautiful country.

Austria is a huge lovely country with pristine lakes and lush greenery. When my husband and I took a trip to Austria, we rented a car and drove to many remarkable villages. Renting a car was essential so that we could be mobile and spontaneous on our trip. While driving, we were surprised to see that some of the roads were over mountains and through tunnels carved out of rock. Some of the tunnels were so long that it took more than 3 minutes to travel it. During our long drives, we crossed some vast areas of natural beauty. I was excited as a child to see cows, sheep and horses grazing on the open fields. Moreover, on our way to the destinations we pulled over by magical blue lakes and rivers. We also had a chance to see from a distance a waterfall rushing down a snowy cliff, although it was July.

In addition, I was fascinated by the way people live in the peaceful, quiet villages. One of the villages we visited, which was engraved in my mind, was picturesque Hallstatt. There, we walked along the lake to the old town, dined in a famous restaurant and ordered a fish from the lake. On yet another trip in the car, we heard about another magical place called Jägersee. There we rowed a boat in a crystal-clear lake and fed swans and ducks. Then, we enjoyed a delicious meal in a restaurant overlooking the lake.

To sum up, I highly recommend taking a trip to Austria, enjoying long drives through the country and visiting unforgettable villages. But, don’t forget to come back to our precious country which will never be replaced in our hearts.

Jägersee

Hallstatt

Victoria has asked me to post this on her behalf.

I am an English teacher at Harel Junior High School in Holon. I prepared and taught a lesson

about using idioms in both English and Hebrew. I used several YouTube video presentations

about different types of idioms and their translations into Hebrew. During the lesson I used

YouTube Quizzes as technological tools to achieve better understanding of idioms. The reason

why I used these technological tools was to teach the students higher order thinking skills of

comparing and contrasting, distinguishing different opinions , understanding cause and

effect. The students   showed interest in the lesson. They were really enthusiastic towards

the material and participated well. 

The lesson was successful and the topic was interesting. I 'd like to  incorporate more idioms

during my next lessons.  In addition to that I will also use different websites and

presentations about idioms during the whole year while presenting new words and topics to my students.

Finally, I want to share with you the list of idioms that I used in the lesson.

 1. Practice what you preach.
 2. Practice makes perfect.
.3 It’s raining cats and dogs.
.4 Storm in a teacup.
.5 Food for thought.
.6 Like water off a duck’s back.
.7 Speak your mind.
.8 Break a leg.
.9 To have cold feet.
.10 Earning a living.
.11 A drop in the bucket.
.12 Actions speak louder than words.
.13 Buy a lemon.
.14 Haste makes waste
  15. Hold your horses.
  16 Last but not least.
 17        Let the cat out of the bag.
  18 Got up on the wrong side of bed.
     19 Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. 
  20         You can’t judge a book by its cover.

The film Green Book - The Story of an Odd-Couple Bromance

The film that I would like to recommend is the Oscar winner for Best Picture this year, "Green Book".

Green Book is based on a true story that happened in America in the 1960s.  The film captures a road trip across America of a rich black pianist by the name of Don Shirley  and his personal driver/bodyguard,  Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga, a white man who is a streetwise Italian-American trying to make ends meet.

The film deals with the race issue of Black vs White but with a twist. The privileged one is actually the black guy and not the white guy.  In the film both characters have misconceptions about the other’s culture but they manage to overcome them. Thanks to their unique personalities the two form a wonderful friendship. The actors did an excellent job portraying their characters.

On the one hand, the film is your typical American film full of stereotypes and clichés about the issue of racism. It also reminded me too much of another famous Oscar winning film that I like, Driving Miss Daisy. It felt to me like Green Book is the movie Driving Miss Daisy in reverse.

On the other hand, what I liked about this film is that it is what I call a feel good movie. The film portrays the kindness and tolerance between human beings despite their differences.  The story deals with racism which is not an easy subject in films. Also the characters are complexed but at the same time they were very endearing and at the end of the film I left the theater smiling. 

Thumbs up from me.

As a part of my studies on identities , I’ve just read Judith Butler’s article Who Are You?.  According to Butler, the very need to explain ourselves is to make ourselves recognizable and understandable. We create narratives according to social and moral norms. The content might be different, but the framework is similar.

Butler then goes on to discuss the concept of exposure. She says if the story of a person is the story of exposure to others, then we have a mutual dependence on each other. She refers to Levinas’ “The anthropology of fragility”, in which he claims that when a face of the others is completely naked, you have the potential ability to hurt them.  We should be aware, then, of this and try to live our lives without hurting other people.

Is it possible to live a life without harming others? I’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

My Thoughts on Class Size

I teach in a small special high school for students with learning disabilities.

Unlike "regular" schools, I teach classes with 6-10 students.I have been working there since I began teaching 4 years ago and I can't imagine myself teaching classes with 30-40 students. In each of my four classes there are students with a wide range of disabilities – dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADD, students on the autism spectrum etc.These students have experienced failures in different schools and for some of them we are the last option to succeed in the educational system.I teach classes which are tested for 4-5 points "bagrut" and these students usually do very well in their exams.Teaching these students is very challenging yet very rewarding.

I want to focus a bit on the class sizes. Small classes enable us to help every student, teach each of them "according to his/her way", and see them and their difficulties.

I look around and see my friends who are teaching huge classes and my kids who are studying in these type of classes and think that it is wrong in so many ways. There is no way that a teacher can see the student as an individual while there are 35 or 40 faces in front of her. My daughter tells me that some of the teachers don’t even remember her name at the end of the year. That is so sad!!

I think that a reasonable class size is a basic condition for teaching and learning effectively. Furthermore, I believe that every child is entitled to be seen.In my opinion, limiting the classroom size to 20-25 students is the first thing that should be done in the Israeli school system.

oral skills

B"H

I would like to share with you what I do with my 10^th grade students. I teach the weak group and my students are afraid to speak in English, especially in front of the rest of the group. Therefore, I have decided to dedicate between a quarter and a- half of one of our lessons to this purpose:; working on their oral skills. Once a week they have to speak for one-two minutes about the given subject, for example; traditional food, hobbies, friends, etc.

The first few times, some of my students did not speak, they came unprepared and were afraid to speak. However, I am happy to say that I can see them change for the better, and they feel more comfortable than before.

I do not correct their mistakes. We just listen to what they have to say.

In my opinion, it works great, and thanks G-d, I can really see an improvement.

It is important for me to add that I have a very small group (eight students) so I do not know how it would work with larger groups since sometimes it might be boring to hear 20 students speaking on the same topic..

Would like to hear what you think about it,

Chani Neiman

Meaningful Learning

I believe that when learning is meaningful and relevant to students, they get more out of the learning process and can have fun doing it.

Therefore, I try my best to think of ways to motivate and stimulate students to give them an added value. I combine technology, card and online games inside and outside of the classroom to that end.  

In order to make the process of learning literature more meaningful, I decided to have the students more involved in it. While teaching the poem Count That Day Lost, I encountered some confusion among the 10^th graders who could not really grasp the poetic language. One evening I watched a lovely news report about an Israeli English teacher, who did a project with her students to encourage them to do good deeds. I immediately felt that this was the opportunity to link the material learned in class to the students' reality. Ever since I showed the news report to the students, our good deeds project went viral. The students were asked to send pictures of videos of them doing something good to our Whatsapp group to make the day "well spent", as the poem learned in class suggested. Each student thought of an act of kindness to family members and passersby and tried to be creative. One student gave a flower to an old lady, another made breakfast for her little sister, while yet another student washed the floor instead of his mother; some others arranged chairs in the classrooms and more. Every time I got a new picture/video I was excited. The students enjoyed the process and made the connection between their good deeds projects to what we learned in class.

This experience was a proof for me that as a teacher it is essential to make learning meaningful and there is no limit to the ideas.    

Your second, personal blog post

Now that (most of) you have posted your first, professional post we're going to move to the second blog post, which should be of a more personal nature, specifically a review. Read on to find out what you can review and how to go about it.

My favorite speaking activity

There are four language skills that an EFL learner has to master: writing, reading, listening and speaking. Some might say that the skill of speaking is the most infamous one. In other words, speaking is considered to be the most challenging one to teach and to acquire.

Pedagogically speaking, the EFL teacher has to acknowledge two main things. First, providing the students with various opportunities to speak is fundamental. There must be different types of speaking activities throughout the lesson. Second, speaking is hard to master mostly because it has a lot to do with confidence, or the lack of it. The teacher has to make sure the students feel comfortable enough to speak freely and confidently within the classroom by providing a tolerant, safe atmosphere for them to explore and make mistakes.

In my classes, I try to encourage my students to speak as much as possible even though it is not always easy. When I was a college student, I was observing an amazing English teacher in an elementary school in Holon and she had a wonderful speaking activity, which I adopted, Each student receives a sheet with common personal questions, such as Where do you live? What is your favorite season? When is your birthday?. There are between 30-41 questions, depends on the grade level. Firstly, we go over the questions together and the students write down their answers. Then, the students practice asking and answering in pairs or groups. Later on, each lesson a student is given the chance to be the "Pupil on Duty", in which he is to answer the other pupils` questions without looking at the sheet. Thus, the pupils get the opportunity to speak English freely using memorized chunks.

Over the years I have seen that this activity is very relatable and enjoyable for all ages since the students get to speak about themselves, their habits and their interests. Also, the teacher can adapt the content to the learners` level. Another reason I like this activity is that being able to ask and answer personal questions in English is something that can help them in various situations in life.

What is your favorite speaking activity?

Tomer

Barak Zluf - class experiment

Introduction:

When our students just look at us and listen to what we are saying they remember only 10% of the given information. When we ask them to write it down they can increase the amount of information they remember up to 50%, but when we ask them to actually practice, they can remember even 90% of the information!

I always think of how to integrate students’ participation in class and truly feel like the textbooks give us great opportunities for that. We, as teachers, have to use them.

Hypothesis:

Last month I started the second unit in the textbook with my 11th grade, 5 points. This unit talks about gender. We read a text about the effects of gender stereotypes and the fact that girls don’t speak up in class as much as boys.

One of the proposed tasks, after reading the text, was to let the students choose a lesson in any subject, and run a class experiment to find out if it’s true and who really contributes more to the lesson; boys or girls.

I found it very beneficial for the students. First, if they run the experiment they can easily learn more new words from the text and additionally great vocabulary related to experiments. That would help them with unseens, most of which describe various studies and their results. Second, using their new vocabulary orally by presenting their results to their peers in class can build their confidence. And at least, to remember what we have learned.

Procedure:

So I prepared an experiment sheet (attached picture) and handed it out to each student. I asked only 5 to make a big presentation and the rest were asked to share their results afterwards, in the final discussion in class.

Conclusion:

When I shared it with my colleges, other English teachers, they said they didn’t even notice that task in the textbook or avoided it since it sounds too complicated. So when you have new ideas, share it! For my students, they enjoyed the research they conducted, remembered the new vocabulary much better and the correct way to use it.

And for myself, I’ll keep thinking about more ideas to make my students more active in order to help them remember the material. It surely works!

Thank you for reading!

Barak

Teaching like you like it

Well, this is my third year as a teacher and every day I wonder,

sometimes I'll keep to myself and at times I'll give it voice or write it:

Do I want to be a teacher? The kind that goes to school every morning?

The kind that deals with all the paperwork to keep track of students and

their progress or lack of progress? The kind that walks into classes of

almost 40 students to hear their complaints about their friends, the

homework or even me, yes me?

And then the day begins, I walk from one class to the other, some are

greater than others, looking at their creations and desire for learning

and I say, “Oh well, I can stay for a little longer and then decide”. And to

be honest, it gets better every year.

I noticed one extraordinary thing I lack. My publicity skills. Not like Hollywood

actors and actresses but close.  We can be sort of public figures, in our school

realm, if we play our cards right. Especially us, English teachers.

During the last two weeks, I have been working with my students on creating

English games. I have noticed that when kids work, look for information and

create, they are happy and learning and so am I.