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