"Hello Class" - An Opinion On What Really Matters

"Hello World",

is a common phrase associated, in my mind, to the introductory example given usually at the basic functions lesson of any Computer Language Programming (CPL). Now, let me rephrase it for us teachers,  

"Hello Class".

        The first lesson with new students confronts us with a problem, disparity. As a human being that works for the ministry of education in a position of a teacher. And as one who have my own life with my family and etc, I have my own expectation on how the lesson should be carried out. On the other hand we have the students, each one individually and collectively as a group, that have their own expectation with this lesson. Usually, this problem get solved by one way, teachers demand students to change their own expectations and do whatever they ask them to do. 
When I understood that my students also have needs, I decided to use a more beneficial way for both parties. I, as a teacher certificate student, suggest to all of you teachers to study this approach. An approach in which the students voice is heard, that will maybe make the teachers work harder. But, if the students will learn better, then it's, again for my opinion, worth the effort.

        As teachers, and especially as foreign language teachers in Israel, we need to be creative and open minded about EVERYTHING. We need to be willing to use any material at hand, in order to show our students the yellow brick road paved toward Englishman town.

:-) 


As I already mentioned, bear in mind, when dealing with our students, the easiest way to get into their minds is simply understanding what will appeal to them. In this post I'll write about an approach to get it through their own language. If you ask me, CPL is a good medium to do so.

        CPL, as far as my knowledge goes, uses only English words, maybe it is not in grammatical sentences, but it is well-organized structures. Which underlies the basic functions of each word morphologically in the imperative form . For example in (c) CPL we can find commands like

printf() / The function of printing ON SCREEN WHAT IS IN THE BRACKERTS
output   / the function of showing the print out
#include  / the function of classes
if    (a==b) { blah...  }         
                // If a equals b, then do whatever is in the curly brackets.

while (a<b)  { blah...  }
    // For as long as a is less than b, continue to execute whatever
                                                                                 is inside the {} brackets.

for (int n=0 ; n<50 ; n=n+1 ) {..}
// This will execute whatever is in the curly brackets, 50 times.
                                                                            Also n will go from 0 to 49.

that brings out the syntax of the English language out to the front. Which in turn, can help us explain the differences between Hebrew and English languages. I'll end my post with a sentence that will give an idea about if. For my humble opinion, if it can give even one student the associations of a correct sentence, then it does worth the effort. Otherwise we are just filling in the spot in front of the blackboard till our pension. 

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