Secondary School English Education in Asia

From policy to practice

Bernard Spolsky, Kiwan Sung

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317642756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Continuing on from the previously published Primary School English-Language Education in Asia: From Policy to Practice (Moon & Spolsky, 2012), this book compiles the proceedings which took place at the 2011 annual conference of AsiaTEFL which took place in Seoul, Korea. It surveys the current status, practices, challenges, and future directions of Secondary English education in 11 diverse countries - in Israel, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Vietnam and China. Given the importance of secondary English education as the central feature for continuing development of target language and culture in English language teaching in Asia, each contributed chapter includes key policies, theories, and practices related to the development and implementation of country-specific curricular and instructional programs in secondary English educational contexts in these countries. Secondary School English Education in Asia: From Policy to Practice critically analyses both sides of the English language debate – from advantages to complications – in its chapters including:

• 
  
  

• Educating for the 21st Century: The Singapore Experience

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• Miles to Go …: Secondary Level English Language Education in India

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• English Language Education Innovation for the Vietnamese Secondary School: The Project 2020

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• Exploring the Value of ELT as a Secondary School Subject in China: A Multi-goal Model for English Curriculum

Secondary School English Education in Asia will appeal to English Language Teaching (ELT) researchers, teacher educators, trainee teachers and teachers, primarily those teaching in Asia.

Part I

Upgrading secondary english teaching through innovative changes

1 English in secondary education in Israel

Susan Holzman

The present language landscape of Israel is complex and varied. Hebrew, the dominant language of Israel today, was not a vernacular language in modern times and only became one about 120 years ago through the conscious efforts of a people with a mission and its use as the medium of instruction in the schools. Arabic, the native language of over 20 per cent of the population, shares the status as an official language together with Hebrew. In addition, there are numerous languages and dialects spoken among various immigrant groups. These include Russian and French, for example, and, of course, a number of Jewish languages such as Yiddish and Ladino. Within this landscape, English has a strong presence for numerous reasons: immigration, tourism, commerce, and strong political and cultural ties to the West, especially the United States.

With its undisputed status as the first foreign language of the country, English is a required school subject from primary school through high school. The Ministry of Education and the English Inspectorate cooperate to update and improve education in general and English language education in particular. There have been a number of innovations in recent years to this end, two stemming from Ministry of Education initiatives and implemented in coordination and cooperation with the English Inspectorate and one developed by the English Inspectorate.

This chapter introduces an innovative curriculum from 2001 designed by the English Inspectorate. This curriculum restructured all the thinking about the English classroom that had preceded it and has been the basis for discussion, review and modification ever since its inception. This chapter also reviews a modular examination system instituted by the Ministry of Education for all school subjects in order to reduce test stress and to encourage pupils to take advanced level exams to increase their achievements. Modular exams are easier to carry out when subject matter can be divided and each level of exam assesses knowledge of different material (e.g. European history or American history). Because the English exam assesses knowledge of skills such as accessing information from written texts and spoken texts, creating modular exams was a much greater challenge. The Ministry of Education’s recent directive to teach and test critical thinking in all subject areas has also posed a challenge. This has been met with a new program integrating the teaching and testing of literature together with critical thinking skills.

It is difficult to present a snapshot of English in secondary education in Israel because the pictures change daily. This activity has not always brought great improvement, but it has created a vigorous and lively teaching community and encouraged study and dialogue. The strength of the system lies in the vitality and the energy of the English teaching community: the teachers, the counselors, the supervisors, the teacher trainers, and the researchers. Their unique contribution helps to maintain the status of English in Israel today.

Introduction

The place of English in secondary education in Israel does not stand isolated and detached allowing for examination under a microscope. Its place is dynamic and evolving in the context of the languages spoken and used in Israel in general. Hebrew, as the main language of Israel, holds a unique position which must be considered vis-à-vis English. Historically, like so many Asian nations, the land which is today Israel was once controlled by the British, leaving a legacy of English language administration and tradition.

In Israel, English is a compulsory subject in school and the only required foreign language in the battery of matriculation exams which serve as the gatekeeper for employment and tertiary education. The position of English in secondary schools as demonstrated in this practice is a function of both official language policy and societal practices. To understand how this transpired, Spolsky (2004) suggests that three components of a speech community be examined:

…its language practices—the habitual pattern of selecting among the varieties that make up its linguistic repertoire; its language beliefs and ideology—the beliefs about language and language use; and any specific efforts to modify or influence that practice by any kind of language intervention, planning or management.

(p. 5)

The status accorded to English in Israel is not a foregone conclusion. Israel is a land of immigrants who revived a dead language as their lingua franca. In other words, the community selected to speak and use a language which was not among their familiar repertoires. The selection of Hebrew was not an obvious choice: it was not a status language in the world; it had a different orthography than the languages they knew; the available opportunities for exposure to the language had to have been limited and the models for emulation were not native speakers. On the other hand, the beliefs and ideology of the speech community were a driving force in the re-creation of Hebrew as the vernacular of the Jewish people, a force that often led to the rejection of use of other languages. In the early years of the state, for example, there was no attempt by parents to preserve their mother tongues. It was not unusual for plurilingual parents, speaking Yiddish, Polish, German, Russian, French, and Czech to raise monolingual Hebrew-speaking children. Finally, there were any number of official actions specifically aimed at strengthening and solidifying the hegemony of Hebrew in Israel. One example was the establishment of the first university in the area; the Hebrew University was established in 1925, 23 years before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and effectively intervened, managed and planned the language of academia for Jerusalem.

General language background

Today, the official languages of Israel are Hebrew and Arabic, two ancient Semitic languages. According to Crystal, Hebrew was the spoken language of ancient Palestine until about the third century (Crystal, 1992). However, Myhill (2004) explains that the date of death of Hebrew as a spoken language cannot really be discerned. The area was in flux with the Babylonian conquest in 586 CE, the invasion of Alexander the Great 260 years later and the Roman occupation 260 years after that (Myhill, 2004). Between the linguistic incursions and the Jewish dispersion, Hebrew waned as the vernacular of the Jewish people. During the diaspora of the Jewish people, Hebrew transmuted into a number of Jewish languages: Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Arabic and others. These languages were the vernaculars used in Jewish communities all over the world. However, the Bible as a sacred text preserved ancient Hebrew and was a unifying factor for the Jewish people throughout their history. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the revival of Hebrew as a living language began among Jews in various parts of world, but particularly among the Jews in Palestine, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Although Myhill (2004) rejects the use of the word “miracle” to describe the rebirth of Hebrew as a spoken language, he says:

…the revival of Hebrew is, as far as we know, an event unique in human history. There has never before or since been a case of what I am referring to as a “revival” a natural language which was previously spoken by native speakers, then ceased to have native speakers and then came again to have an entire community of speakers—in fact, an entire nation of native speakers.

(p. 74)

Although this revival was not always painless, it seems that the introduction of Hebrew into the pre-schools, schools and institutions of higher learning was crucial to the process. The Ottoman Turks had not objected to the use of Hebrew in Jewish schools (Myhill, 2004) and when the the British Mandate over Palestine came in effect after World War I, the British continued the existing policy of the language of instruction for Jewish schools to be Hebrew and the language of instruction for Arab schools to be Arabic (Spolsky and Shohamy, 1999).

English in Israel

After the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I by the Allied Powers, Britain accepted the League of Nations’ mandate over Palestine. During the 25 years of British control, the British government recognized the status of the local languages, but English became the language of government (Spolsky and Shohamy, 1999). English was a required subject in the schools during the Mandate Period and was taught as the main foreign language. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Hebrew and Arabic were declared official languages and English lost its status as the language of the administration and as a required school subject. Nevertheless, English maintained its position of importance as the first foreign language in the schools (Spolsky and Shohamy, 1999).

After 1967, there was a surge of immigration to Israel from English-speaking countries, which brought many native-speaker teachers to the country. Although most had not trained as EFL teachers, special retraining courses were offered to certify them locally. As a result, about 40 per cent of the English teachers in the Jewish schools in Israel are native speakers of English, either immigrants or the children of immigrants (Spolsky and Shohamy, 1999). As Judd (2008) points out, one of the most important aspects of carrying out any teaching plan is to have skilled teachers. These new immigrants, natives of the United States, Canada, England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, injected a cohort of experienced English native-speaker teachers into the system. The result is that throughout the public school system, there are significant numbers of native-speaker English teachers, counselors and inspectors from a variety of English-speaking countries. These teachers are locals, most know the pupils’ Hebrew, and they are familiar with local culture, customs and religion. Their backgrounds contribute to the acceptance of Englishes, the use of a variety of teaching methods and the richness of English language teaching in Israel, in general.

English in Israel has maintained high status and prestige for many reasons. As a small language community, English was essential for all business, diplomatic and academic contacts. Especially important were considerations of tourism as well as escalating economic and political relations with the United States.

General background on education in Israel

The stated aim of the educational system is as follows: “The educational system aims to prepare children to become responsible members of a democratic pluralistic society in which people from different ethnic, religious, cultural and political backgrounds coexist” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2010). To further this aim, there are a number of national education laws, the first of which was passed in 1949, shortly after the establishment of the state and while the War of Independence was still being fought.

The 1949 law made one year of kindergarten and eight years of elementary school compulsory and free for all citizens, Jewish and Arab. The Free Compulsory Education law of 1953 extended compulsory education attendance to the age of 16 (through 10th grade). At that time, tuition was charged for the final two years of high school. Since 1979, 11th and 12th grades are free, but not obligatory (Ichilov, 2009).

The school system has three main divisions: elementary school (Grades 1 through 6), junior high school (Grades 7 through 9) and senior high school (Grades 10 through 12). Most teachers in elementary schools and junior high schools receive their training at four-year academic teacher training colleges and are holders of Bachelors of Education degrees. These teachers have had extensive practical field training in schools during their four years of study in addition to academic courses in their chosen discipline (e.g., biology, Hebrew, Arabic, English, Bible). High school teachers have usually completed a Bachelors of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree in their chosen discipline at the university level and, after completing this degree, continue for one more year at the university in a special program to receive teaching certification. All teachers in the public school system, from kindergarten through 12th grade, can register for a sabbatical program and are entitled to have a year off for study every seventh year. Through this sabbatical program, many teachers study for advanced degrees or specialized training to enhance and further their professional development.

There are a number of school options for high school pupils to choose from: vocational, technical, agricultural, academic, military, or religious. In addition, within each school, the pupils have options concerning their course of study and the subjects they wish to study more intensively. However, there are subjects that are obligatory in all high schools. These include Bible, math, literature, history, Hebrew expression, citizenship, and English. For Arab and Druze students, the requirements are somewhat different and include Arabic language, history and culture (Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, 2005).

Matriculation exams (The Bagrut) are administered by the Ministry of Education in the required subjects and in approximately 100 additional electives which have received authorization. A full matriculation certificate is a requirement for many jobs and university or college entrance. The Ministry of Education sets the policy concerning how and when the tests are administered. In recent years a modular arrangement has been introduced in the assessment system in order to reduce stress and allow flexibility. Pupils take parts of their exams in 10th grade and complete the process in the 12th grade. To obtain a matriculation certificate, a pupil must earn at least 20 credit points through Bagrut examinations plus another 7 credit points from school-graded subjects. A credit point is given for an hour a week during each of the last three school years, or for three hours a week during one year. The default level for a sub...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I Upgrading secondary English teaching through innovative changes
• PART II Bridging gaps in policy development and implementation
• PART III Valuing critical needs of society and learners
• Index