As part of the regional English program supported by Partnership 2000 and the Sacta-Rashi Foundation, a program of in-service training is being offered to teachers as follow-up to a comprehensive training course in literacy given last year to English teachers in Central Galilee.

The content of in-service training is adapted to this central topic and follows Ministry of Education supervisory guidelines for English language learning.  Moreover, the training responds to the needs of teachers that came up during the course of visits and meetings held during the previous and current school years.  The training’s content serves as the basis for the cooperative work of educational guides and teachers.  The program of in-service training targets school teachers and supplementary teachers who work under the project.

In-service training for teachers of grades 4–6 is taught by Hillary Lavi and is conducted at Kibbutz Ginnegar.  The training comprises nine sessions and deals mainly with the topic of Practical Methods and Means of Teaching.  Hillary communicates her insights to the teachers, gathered from her vast accumulation of knowledge and experience.

In-service training for middle school teachers is delivered by Ofra Rosenstein and Julie Minsky.  The topic taught is Methods of Teaching Writing.  The training comprises four long sessions and takes place at Western Valley School on Kibbutz Yifat.  Twenty-one teachers participate in the course and are reporting a high level of satisfaction – thanks to the practical and engaging methods the instructors have chosen for teaching the subject.

English teachers from Nazareth Illit and Migdal HaEmek are also undergoing the same in-service training program, which is being taught by Miki Landau and Stephanie Fox.

From a letter sent by one of the teachers:

This year we progressed from theory to practice.  We’re dealing with student difficulties and methods of solving them via diverse activities and games that work on phonetics, vocabulary, reading comprehension, etc.  These applied methods add a lot to our teaching.  Hillary shows us a large variety of games and activities that can be used in the classroom; we're getting an outstanding opportunity to expand the pool of teaching aids at our disposal.

A letter sent by teachers to instructors Ofra and Julie:

On behalf of all of the teachers taking part in in-service training I want say that we truly appreciate your investment and the quality of the course you are teaching.  You're doing wonderful work.  You've also developed a very successful pace of working together that we really enjoy.

Following the first two sessions, we've all used some of the suggestions we received in class and it's worked out superbly.  I can't recall a course I've taken that was so focused on our needs and provided us with so many ideas we could immediately apply.  We appreciate your efforts and enjoy coming to the sessions.

Thank you!