April 9, 2009

תילגנא לולסמ

לרב תיב תימדקאה הללכמה

ךוניחו תונמא ,תוברת ,הרבח

Student Conference, the English Department - 2011

Book of Abstracts

PLENARY

English as an International Language: what difference does it make?

English is today used predominantly as a tool of international communication between people who speak another language as their mother tongue, as distinct from its use as a mother tongue in the English-speaking countries. I will suggest in this talk that this development makes substantial differences to both principles and practice of our teaching.

About the Speaker

Penny Ur has thirty years’ experience as an English teacher in elementary, middle and high schools in Israel. Now retired, she has taught M.A. courses at Oranim Academic College of Education and Haifa

University. She has presented papers at TESOL, IATEFL and various other English teachers’ conferences worldwide.

She has published a number of articles, and was for ten years the editor of the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers series. Her books include Discussions that Work (1981), Five Minute Activities

(co ‑ authored with Andrew Wright) (1992), A Course in Language

Teaching (1996), Grammar Practice Activities (2nd Edition) (2009), and

Vocabulary activities (forthcoming); she is also the editor of Active

English (2011), all published by Cambridge University Press.

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תילגנא לולסמ STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Session I – Special Issues in Applied Linguistics

Learning What is Read and What is Said: a Comparison of the Alterations

Made During Storybook Reading by Arab and Hebrew Speaking Mothers to

Children of Three and Five Years of Age.

Yarden Ofir & Areej Yahya

Course: Special Issues in Applied Linguistics and Education

Instructor: Dr. Anat Stavans

Maternal styles of narrative elicitation are significant when related to children’s narrative development. How mothers, in fact, verbally interact with their young children during narrative elicitation is reflected in the children’s narrative skills. The current study aims at investigating the storybook reading practices of mothers of children of different ages when reading a classic children's story to them.

The storybook reading style of mothers and the interaction between the mother and child both contribute to the development of their child’s later narrative ability in various manners in terms of three parameters: a) The structural, linguistic and narrative alterations which the mothers make in order to adapt the text to meet the child’s age and language development; b) What sort of interactional discourse transpires during shared storybook reading; c) The components or parts of the story that are more likely to be altered in order to facilitate the child’s understanding of the story.

Our presentation consists of two parallel studies. In one study, participants were recruited from amongst the educated Arabic-speaking community and included eight mother-child dyads. In the other study, sixteen mother-child dyads were recruited from amongst middle-class educated Hebrew-speaking families. In both studies the mothers were recorded reading the story Rumpelstiltskin (in Arabic Joaidane and in

Hebrew Bat – Hatochen.)

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We predict the following similarities in the discourse of both populations: a) Both will make different lexical, grammatical and thematic alterations in each of the age groups; b) The interactive discourse will vary in quantity and quality across the age groups;

c) Some story components will be more prone to changes such as (a) and

(b) for both age groups; d) However, there will be important differences across these two populations pertaining to lexical alterations and explanatory discourse to bridge the gap between standard written language and the more commonly used spoken language.

We believe that these findings will provide an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the processes that begin at home and lead children into their scholastic literacy.

Grand-Mothers Narrative to Preschool-Children

Sana Daqqa & Manal Rabbos

Course: Special Issues in Applied Linguistics and Education


Storytelling is a particular type of communication. Through storytelling we convey information that we have stored in our databases. This information cannot speak for itself unless we give it a voice. In addition, telling stories is considered to be an art that requires skills which most of us have acquired naturally but never learned. Storytelling has major importance in every culture due to its various discursive purposes. It helps to entertain, educate, and preserve culture and moral values.

Our memories maintain many diverse kinds of stories that we pass on from generation to generation. The research observes how different generations relate the same story and examines whether there is a

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תילגנא לולסמ difference between two generations telling the story. In addition, the researchers have a personal interest in studying storytelling in the Arab sector in order to improve narrative telling skills.

In order to conduct this research we recorded two age groups of four children in each one – 4 children aged 3-4 years old and four children aged

5-6 years old. We recorded their mothers and their grandmothers while telling them the same story, the Frog Story.

Our presentation will discuss the storytelling styles of mothers and grandmothers to pre-school children. Our analysis will be quantitative and qualitative, looking in particular at forms and functions of language used while telling a story to the same child.

Parents’ Encouragement of Children’s Creative Thinking During Shared Story

Telling

Nili Amit

Course: Special Issues in Applied Linguistics


This presentation is based on my research in the framework of the course

Special Issues in Applied Linguistics, in which I explored parents' encouragement of creative thinking in their children during shared story reading. This research is based on a linguistic analysis of taped conversations between parents and children aged 3 and 5 while reading the story Rumpelstiltskin.

In the process of my analysis, I observed a variety of questions parents asked their children during the shared story reading. Most interactions between the parents and their children were based on tangible aspects of the narrative, e.g. characters and objects that appeared in the story's illustrations. What I was interested in was finding questions asked by the parents to provoke conversations on non tangible aspects of the narrative, e.g. characters' feelings, unexpected events, and the children's responses to those feelings and events. Such questions usually included verbs like

feel, believe, expect, or marked a connection between the child and the character/event ("what would you do if..." "what do you think will happen

next?"). These questions fall into three main categories: pragmatic

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(related to the child's life), fantastic (related to invented themes) and mechanical (on the use of different objects in the story).

As I am still in the process of research I cannot give the results in this abstract. My expectations are that questions that provoke creative thinking will appear more in the age group of the 5 years old, and that most questions will be on future events in the narrative and on the children's relation to certain characters.

The structure of the presentation will be:

- Introduction of research aim, procedure and expectations

- A short film clip showing Daphna Dekel reading out the story

Rumpelstiltskin to a stuffed doll and their conversation (on non tangible aspects of the story)

- Presentation of statistical results

- Conclusions

Narratives We Grow up With

Keren Zaviv

Course: Special Issues in Applied Linguistics


What distinguishes a good story from just any story or description of events is the language used especially evaluative language. Our narrative ability develops very early in our lives and our main resources are the adults who provide us a language-rich environment. We are exposed to narratives through the discourse addressed to us, through books read to us and through social demands to create texts and give reports.

Evaluation in narratives has been viewed as the more sophisticated, endstate ability in narrative production. Evaluative comments, internal state verbs and diminutives are just some of the linguistic means availed to reflect theory of mind. Theory of mind is our ability to perceive the world not only through our lives and eyes, but through the lives of others. This ability leads in adulthood to empathy, recognition of otherness and tolerance with exposure to evaluative language.

The present study set out to investigate how internal state verbs and evaluations are used by adults who engage in telling their children a story

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תילגנא לולסמ based on a picture-book “Frog, where are you?”. Thirty parents’ narratives of children ages 3-4 and 5-6 (15 each group) were analyzed to answer the following research questions:

1.

In what type of clauses appear what kinds of Internal State Verbs?

2.

Are there narrative sections of the story that are more sensitive to a particular clause type?

3.

What narrative sections are more sensitive to ISV?

Data is analyzed according to Melzi’s paradigm (2003) and Stavans (1998) typology. The results of the study will provide insights of natural extended discourse provided by parents to their children which may be adopted and adapted in the language classroom.

Session II – Feminism

Germaine Greer: A Study in the Power of Language

Dr. Raviv Schwartz

Course: Feminism

Instructor: Dr. Pamela Peled

Born in Melbourne in 1939, Germaine Greer is considered by many to be among the most influential feminists of the modern era. An author, academic, literary scholar, popular media pundit, and even amateur actress,

Greer has always managed to arouse controversy, provoke thought and inspire the respect of supporters and detractors alike. My presentation will highlight Greer's skillful (and sometimes shocking) use of language in advancing a decidedly radical, and at times unlikely, feminist agenda.

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Session III – Practicum

From Theory to Practice: Implementation of Subjects Learnt in the Didactic

Seminar, in Practice Teaching

Yarden Ofir

Course: Didactics Seminar: Junior High

Instructor: Dr. Susie Russak

In the Didactic Seminar course, we try to find practical answers to theoretical questions and apply that knowledge to help us “jump-start” our teaching career.

In my presentation I will demonstrate the ways in which I have used the theoretical tools and guidance given to me in the Didactic Seminar, to handle real life situations during my practice teaching. I will be focusing on four major points:

1.

“Reflection on action” vs. “Reflection in action”.

2.

Teachers’ beliefs.

3.

Dealing with behavioral issues and classroom management.

4.

“Thinking outside of the box” or, “Thinking outside of the book”.

While addressing each of these categories, I will rely both on my own personal teaching experience, on my observations of other teachers, and on my reflections on those instances.

In my presentation, I will also offer a personal perspective on the way my learning process as a student has been implemented in my teaching practice.

Encouraging English learning by Personal Email Correspondence

Nili Amit

Course: Didactics Seminar: Junior High

Instructor: Dr. Susie Russak

This presentation is about an on-going project I have initiated for my practical work at Dror Junior High School, together with my pedagogical advisor Dr. Susie Russak, and with the support and aid of Margaret Porat.

The project's aim is to encourage pupils' use of English, by personal email

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תילגנא לולסמ correspondence with an adult. I meet weekly with a group of about five pupils chosen by my mentor teacher. Each week we discuss a topic that is interesting for them and relates to their lives, e.g. their relationships with their parents, their feelings about their social status, their hobbies, etc.

At the end of each session they write me an email on these subjects, to which I give a personal reply. Our expectations are that pupils will make use of this channel of communication in order to open up and express themselves, so that they will benefit both from the psychological side (a place to discuss personal issues with a sympathetic adult) and from the language side (a free platform to express themselves in English).

In this presentation I will:

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Introduce the project and expectations.

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Present examples of pupils' responses and issues raised during the project.

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Examine whether the project reached its goals and present conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of the project and further suggestions on how and why it should or should not be implemented in the regular English junior high curriculum.

Session IV – Narrative Development

Whom Are You Telling To? Telling the Social Story of a Narrative

Kate Harnam, Ayelet Alper, Lauren Gur

Course: Narrative Development Research


Among the oral language skills, early narrative competence has been cited by a number of researchers as a significant predictor of reading achievement and academic success 12 . Although narratives are common in children's communicative environments, they are challenging to produce.

The child needs to be able to move from the interchange of conversation to the ability to reflect on the needs of the listener and the language

1 Dickinson, D., McCabe, A., Anastasopoulos, L., Peisner-Feinberg, E. & Poe, M. (2003). The comprehensive language approach to early literacy: The interrelationships among vocabulary, phonological sensitivity, and print knowledge among preschool-aged children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 2, 465-481.

2 Snow, C.E. & Dickinson, D.K. (1990). Social sources of narratives at home and at school . First Language. 10, 87-

103.

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תילגנא לולסמ necessary to produce the narrative. Researchers suggest that the skills required by children’s narrative activities involve "decontextualization"; an orientative-descriptive component, the element of narration most responsible for making narratives stand on their own, traced in early parent-child conversation.

The study of narrative development is therefore tremendously important since narratives serve as an extended discourse by which humans create their worlds, their cultures and meaning in their lives. Individual differences in narrative ability have been found to be good predictors in the successful acquisition of literacy.

In our study we assume that the adults input (here the grandparents as the "storytellers") plays an important role in children's narrative ability and literacy development. We set out to analyze gendered characteristics in the profiles of grandparents’ narrative input.

To this end, we report on gender differences in grandparents’ narratives addressed to children ranging in age from 3 to 8. It is our hypothesis that there will be a difference in: a) stories addressed to boys as opposed to those addressed to girls; and b) that there will be a developmental difference in those gender-driven stories across the ages groups. Data includes three groups of children aged 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8, who were told the story "Frog, where are you?" A corpus of 32 stories was analyzed in terms of discursive narrative forms and functions, in order to explain and reflect on the possible reasons for gendered differences in the grandparents’ narrative styles in terms of narrative length, types of cohesive devises used, and types of narrative clauses deployed.

Telling a Story to Your Granddaughter vs. Your Grandson

Yoni Portnoy & Dana Bernknopf

Course: Narrative Development


A narrative is a type of extended discourse which describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events. An important part of narrative development is to find the appropriate linguistic and narration forms to serve the communicative function that leads to a narrative.

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Children begin developing their narrative ability when exposed to different storytelling experiences provided, initially, by their immediate environment consisting mostly of relatives (parents, grandparents, and siblings) and later through social agents (teachers, peers and media). There are unique storytelling styles (Adams et al., 1995; Davidson & Snow, 1996; Fivush et al., 2000) motivated by social factors as well as differences that are driven by the narrator's characteristics (i.e., gender and the socioeconomic status). It is also argued that adult input contributes to the development of the narrative ability as well as the linguistic and cognitive development of children. This input does not necessarily become uptake by the child and certainly does not guarantee output. However, parents engaging in storytelling events with their children tune and calibrate their narratives to meet their child’s ability to interpret, live and co-construct the narrative (Stavans, 1996). Yet, while the parental input has been shown to contribute to the child’s narrative ability, it has not yet been shown whether other adults (specifically grandparents) also contribute in similar or different ways. Today, when more and more families consist of twoincome households, children spend a significant amount of time in the company of other adults. Among the most popular environments are the grandparents who often serve as the secondary caregivers.

It is the purpose of our study to analyze and compare if and how the narrative input differs when directed to children of different genders

(granddaughters versus grandsons) as claimed by Muchnik & Stavans

(2009) "These differences are often in the amount of talk, kind of information provided, speech-acts performed, questions asked, and (non) supportive interactional style." 1

1 Muchnik, M. and Stavans, A. 2009. Telling the same story: Mothers' versus Fathers' Storytelling Interaction, Women and Language, 32(1).

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Interlude: Games Exhibition

Games and Learning

Instructor: Amanda Caplan

"Incorporating a game into the critical care curriculum is an alternative teaching strategy with beneficial outcomes. Games promote team work, reduce stress and generate enthusiasm for learning. Not only does this instructional mode enhance the learning process, but it also makes it fun!"

(Resko D, Chorba M, 1992)

When the time came to decide on a school project as our PDS project at the junior high School, we tried to think about something that we believe could and would benefit both the students and the teachers. Throughout the year we were surprised to see that most teachers we interacted with hardly used games in the class room. We decided to try and change that.

We believe that games are a tool that can enhance learning through motivation, and yes, "having fun" which isn't, in our opinion, a bad thing.

Our assignment was to create three games each for the Intermediate

Level (Junior High School) in various subjects (grammar, vocabulary, telling the time etc) on several levels. The thought processes and the creative aspects which we were exposed to will stay with us as future tools throughout our teaching experiences, and the school will be left with an amazing set of games for the years to come.

Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the GAME

Michael Jordan -

Session V – Guest Presentation from the Academic Arab Institute

Teaching Literature in EFL Classes

Rawya Taha

Literature is often taught in a very superficial and unchallenging way, using a language-based approach . Consequently, pupils are unmotivated, don’t cooperate and even demonstrate challenging behaviors through the lesson.

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This presentation illustrates the implement ion of one of the most important approaches of teaching literature in EFL classrooms: the personal-response approach. In this approach, the students are motivated and encouraged to express different opinions, feelings and emotions towards the literary genre they have read. The approach was implemented in a junior high Arab school with a 9 th grade students for three lessons at least. The students were divided into six groups and worked on a piece of literary work. The pieces were then gathered together in order to understand the genre as a whole. The students also completed a writing task based on HOTS (higher-order thinking skills).

Session VI – Practicum

Teaching Practice – Ziv School

Yasmin Tzioni, Nachama Barhum and ReutTamam

Course: Practical Experience: Elementary School Level

Instructor: Dr. Orly Haim

Teaching writing effectively in an EFL class is not only possible but also rewarding both for learners and teachers. Of the four skills taught in the

EFL classroom, writing is probably the one that is most neglected. As Gabe and Kaplan (1996) point out, "linguists and educational researchers have historically held contradictory positions about the relationship between writing and speaking: traditional linguistic inquiry has held that speech is primary and written language is merely a reflection of spoken language, while educational research has taken the stance that the written form of the language is ‘more correct’ and therefore should be ‘more highly’ valued than orally language” (Weigle, 2001). Writing is viewed within all types of texts and literature and we felt it is not only important for learners to be able to identify the genre of writing but also to be familiar with the

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Elementary School it seemed that there wasn’t as much room for writing practice as there was for the other English language elements. Working together with the mentor teacher we devised a plan that would enable the learners to develop their writing skills and explore different genres of writing for example; poetry, songs and letter writing.

Our lesson incorporated integrated speaking and writing activities as well as reading and writing activities with special emphasis on the various stages of the writing process. The project gave a chance for learners to work individually in a reflective manner. We really wanted to make our learners see that writing can be interesting and does not have to be difficult.

Additionally, we used the idea of songs to introduce our learners to different genres of writing resulting in a writing portfolio created by each of our learners.

Observing the children at Ziv Elementary School, we have seen that how children learn has had a surprising influence on the way we teach. They taught us something which is so fundamental, that when learning cognitive

and communicative skills, progress in one area benefits all the others.

The application of this to the EFL classroom is that becoming a better writer will also make you a better speaker, reader and listener.

The Ziv Song Project

Ayelet Erez, Dina Cohen, Adi Inbar

Course: Didactics Seminar: Elementary School Level


Music is a universal language that strikes a chord in both young and old.

Touching on that, we decided to teach English through songs as part of our practical experience at Ziv Elementary school in Ra'anana.

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3 rd , 5 th and 6 th לרב תיב תימדקאה הללכמה


Students enriched their vocabulary, strengthened their grammar, got familiar with relevant phrases and proverbs, discussed meaning and content of songs, acted out scenes from the songs and presented art projects orally to the class.

Additionally, students learned to sing the songs by heart and researched the artists by using the computer and got acquainted with historical icons such as the Beatles, Stevie Wonder and the 1970's hit TV show

"Neighbors". All this was carried out in a fun and positive atmosphere that encouraged social interaction and use of the language in a natural context.

“Healthy Way of Life”: a School-Based Content Based Initiative

Students: Ayelet Alper, Daphna Seidenberg, Damla Teich, Ofira Engelberg,

Inna Klotts & Andrea Alter

Course: Practical Experience, Elementary School Level


“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have”

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Lev Ran Elementary School in Kadima–Zoran promotes a vibrant and important message to its students and teachers: A healthy mind starts with a healthy lifestyle. In this presentation six Beit-Berl students will share their experience in the first practice week that took place in

January. We as student teachers incorporated the school initiative:

“Healthy way of life” into our lesson plans and conveyed the message that healthy lifestyle habits can be taught to everyone from 2 nd to 6 th grade.

Research has shown that teaching language through content results in language learning, content learning, and increases motivation and interest levels (Curtain,1995; Grabe & Stoller, 1997; Met, 1998). We discussed topics such as healthy daily routines, sports, and nutrition and additionally

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תילגנא לולסמ connection to real life situations. We created among others worksheets, games, quizzes, posters and food pyramids. Our lesson plans and teaching materials took into account the interests and needs of the learners and were designed based on our previous knowledge and learning experience.

We were delighted to experience the pupils’ enthusiasm and interest about the subject.

Session VII – Literature

Interpreting Shakespeare

Sohair Elbasel

Participants involved in the Videos shown in the powerpoint: Yasmin Tzioni,

Nachama Bacher, Reut Tamam, Fida Dabbah, Lauren Gur, Areej Yahya,

Rema Iraqi, Susan Sheik Yousif, Inna Klotts, Manal Rabos and Sana Dakka

Course: Shakespeare


In this course we learnt that without actually “feeling Shakespeare” we miss out on a great deal of the nuances of the play. It is not enough just to read the plays; studying Shakespeare involves exploring his words, reading them aloud, and performing, as well as relating his ideas to modern day experiences.

Our group concentrated on Macbeth. After studying the play and analyzing the main themes, we chose a specific scene that captures both the essence of this play and also some general themes of Shakespeare. The meeting of three witches with Macbeth encapsulates the eeriness of the play, and highlights the question of who controls fate.

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תילגנא לולסמ learners. We would like to share our scene with you now.

Learning Vocabulary and Loads More through Literature: D.H. Lawrence’s

“The Blind Man”

Keren Leshem

Course: The Short Story


In this course we explored the Short Story form and how to teach our students to love literature (while slipping in grammar and vocabulary lessons at the same time). My presentation illustrates how D.H.

Lawrence's wonderful story "The Blind Man" can be used in an exciting way to teach affixes, and demonstrates how teaching literature can be fun and fulfilling.

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April 9, 2009

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