Naftali Bennett
Photo: Shaul Golan
Bennett details plan to raise English-speaking standards in schools
As Israeli children prepare to put on their school bags once again, education minister announces plan to inject reinvigorated efforts into teaching English, providing students with tools to engage in ‘intelligent’ conversation and prepare them for the world of 'high-tech and economics’; ‘We are going to raise a generation that simply speaks English.’
Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Bayit Yehudi) announced Wednesday his new plan to dedicate greater efforts in the upcoming school year to teaching English, insisting “a child in the State of Israel must be equipped with spoken English.”
“As part of the reform, students in elementary schools and high schools will be given the tools that will enable them to conduct a conversation (in English) without difficulty,” predicted Bennett, himself a fluent English speaker and son of immigrants from the United States.
Bennett’s announcement, made a press conference as Israel’s children prepare to put on their school bags once again, marks a shift from a campaign plan, dubbed ‘Give me 5', which he delineated two years ago aimed at stepping up efforts to improve school children’s grades in mathematics.
“It is a basic need for high-tech and economics,” said Bennett as he explained the reasoning behind injecting reinvigorated efforts into teaching English.
Naftali Bennett announces new school plan (Photo: Shaul Golan)
In order for the plan to yield results, he continued, teachers would also have to improve their command of the English language, along with the ability to teach it.
Photo: Shutterstock
To that end, the Education Ministry is planning to recruit around 1,000 professional English teachers from Israel and from abroad, 500 of whom will be university or college graduates. Three hundred of the new teachers will be English speakers in special programs while 150 will be from abroad and 50 from the Arab sector. In addition, 950 fluent English speaking teaching assistants will be hired from Israel and abroad.
“To not know English is to close off 99 per cent of the reading materials in the world and precludes the possibility of working with the English-speaking world,” Bennett claimed.
“We are going to raise a generation that simply speaks English. That is the goal, he enthusiastically added, before setting out his vision to foster the creation of a bi-lingual population.
Photo: Shutterstock
“We want to see children who are able to engage in an intelligent conversation anywhere in the world, who are able to correspond via email at a high standard, who can consume literature at the highest level. In addtion to the raised standard of mathematics and science, the connection to English will be the factor that will reduce gaps in society the most.”
The education minister said that he had set out a clear goal which would result in 70 per cent of students attaining marked improvements in their English examination results, as opposed to the 62 per cent who today achieve high grades.
Not content with focusing on success rates, Bennett also added that he sought to reduce the rates of failure from 20 per cent to 15 percent.
