- Personal
- Education
- Fields of Research
- Academic Positions
- Research Grants
- Supervision of Theses
- List of Publications
- Selected Papers at Scientific Conferences
Personal
Tel: 972-9-778-1143
Fax: 972-9-778-0601
E-mail: esterkl@openu.ac.il
Languages: English, French, Hebrew, German, Hungarian, Yiddish
Education
| 1996 | Certificate in Online Education and Training, Institute of Education, University of London and Lancaster University |
| 1994 | Ph.D. Institute of Education, University of London. Prof. H. Widdowson, Advisor. ESOL Department. Applied Linguistics, Reading Comprehension for Academic Purposes and Distance Education |
| 1983 | M.A. Institute of Education, University of London, Media Department. Film and TV Studies for Education |
| 1979 | ESL/EFL Teacher's Certificate, Royal Society of Arts, International House Teacher Training College, London |
| 1977 | B.A. Westfield College, University of London, Romance Languages and Literature |
| 1970 | Teacher's Certificate in Education, Maria Assumpta College, University of London |
Fields of Research
- Distance Education and Online Delivery Systems
- Media and Multimedia in ELT
- Reading for Academic Purposes
- Teacher Training
- ELT Pedagogy
- Curriculum Development
- Design and development of open learning resources
- Design of CALL internet-based tools to support computer-assisted reading of academic texts in English
Academic Positions
| 2002 - | Head of the English Department, The Open University of Israel |
| 1997 - 2002 | Director of Distance Learning Programs; Designer of asynchronous multimedia courseware, English Department |
| 1991 - 1997 | Pedagogical advisor for online in-service teacher training programs and academic reading courses |
| 1987 - 1991 | Coordinator of intermediate level reading comprehension courses |
| 1994 - 2002 | Institute of Education, University of London, Director of Israel MA programmes for teachers of English in Israel |
| 2000 | Distance Learning Consultant to Yeshiva University, New York |
| 1999 - 2000 | Educational Television of Israel, Ministry of Education - Academic Advisor for EFL program |
| 1995 - 1997 | David Yelin Teacher's Training College, Jerusalem - Head of English Department |
| 1994 - 1995 | Talpiot Teacher's Training College; Tel-Aviv - Lecturer in EFL: Academic Reading and Language Proficiency |
| 1980 - 1987 | The English Workshop Language School. London, England - Director and Lecturer |
| 1992 | Visiting Lecturer, Summer Institute, Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus |
| 1991 - 1992 | Consultant: Cable Television, Educational Projects - Using cable to reinforce ESL and EFL |
Research Grants
| 2014 | EU TEMPUS ECOSTAR project, with I. Barth. Co-leader of Open University's Work Package in EU-funded TEMPUS ECOSTAR project. ECOSTAR is a consortium of 15 universities and colleges in Israel and the EU. Goal of project is to reform the curriculum of EFL courses in Israeli higher educations by aligning Israeli EFL programs with the EU's CEFR. |
| 2008 | Open University Research Authority, Mapping the territory: Identifying barriers to implementation of OLRs among university English teachers (with I. Barth) |
| 2008 | Inter-University Center for E-learning (MEITAL), Development of open learning resources to support acquisition of English academic vocabulary (with I. Barth) |
Supervision of Theses
- Supervised 17 MA Dissertations, Institute of Education, University of London
List of Publications
Books and Monographs
Motivation: Is the Payoff Worth the Effort? (with A. Wohl). Academic Yearbook, Tel Aviv: Talpiot Teachers' College Press (1986, Hebrew).
The Testing Dilemma: Current Research versus Current Practice in Testing Reading (with A. Wohl). Academic Yearbook, Tel Aviv: Talpiot Teachers' College Press (1995, Hebrew).
Chapters in Books
"Windows to the World - Connecting to the Global Village: A Teaching Model for Integrating Content, Language and Literacy" (with A. Wohl), in S. Guri- Rosenblatt, Ed.,Teachers in a Changing World: Trends and Challenges (pp. 325-355). The Open University, 2004.
"What first-language teachers can learn from second-language teachers," in A. Wohl and M. Horovitz, Eds., Reading: From Theory to Practice (Chapter 5, pp. 300-325). Tel Aviv: The Open University, 2002.
"The inter-relationships between second and first language teaching/learning" (with A. Wohl), in Miri Horowitz, Section Ed., Teaching Reading: From Theory to Practice, Vol. 5 (pp. 110-143). Tel Aviv: The Open University, 2000.
"Teaching and learning the language arts with cooperative learning methods" (with A. Wohl), in Shlomo Sharan, Ed., Handbook of Cooperative Learning. Wesport, CO: The Greenwood Educator's Reference Collection, 1994.
Open University Publications
| 2000 | Reading English for Academic Purposes, Course of study for the Open University of Israel, Distance Learning Mode. |
| 1999 | Applied Linguistics for Teachers of EFL, Course of study for Open University of Israel, Distance Learning Mode. |
| 1999 | Teaching Methodology for Teachers of EFL, Course of study for Open University of Israel, Distance Learning Mode. |
| 1994-1997 | Reading English for Academic Purposes, Course of study for Open University of Israel. |
Other Publications
Teaching Students to Use Text-Profilers: A Needs-Based Approach to Tertiary Level English Vocabulary Instruction (with I. Barth). International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching Vol. 1, Issue 3, pp. 86-98. 2011
"Thinking aloud, talking, and learning to read: ESL reading comprehension training in small cooperative groups" (with Y. Bejarano), Ilha Dodesterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies, 38 (2000), pp.57-81.
Evaluation report: Development of an Online E Level English Course: A Pilot Study (with G. Shuster-Bouskila, C. Gordon), 2006.
Selected Papers at Scientific Conferences
| 2011 | Roads to Academic Reading in English: New Tools for Helping Students Cope with English Vocabulary in Academic Texts (with I. Barth & Y. Ersoff), UTELI Conference - University Teachers of English Language in Israel, Tel Aviv University, Israel. |
| 2011 | Roads to Academic Reading in English: Building Students' Capacity to Cope with Vocabulary in Academic Texts (with Y. Ersoff & I.Barth), FACET Conference: (Forum of Academic College English Teachers). Teaching for the test or testing what we teach? Finding the balance between academic and real world needs, Ort-Braude College, Carmiel, Israel. |
| 2009 | “Language can open doors: Online self-study tools for crossing language barriers” (with I. Barth), EU ENPI Conference on Regional Capacity Building Initiative, Amman, Jordan. |
| 2009 | “From 'fishes' to fishing-rods: Open learning resources for acquisition of English academic vocabulary” (with I. Barth), Seventh Annual Conference of Israel Inter-University Computation Center (Meital), Tel Aviv. |
| 2008 | “The Impact of Affective Communications on Students' Perceptions and Performance in an Online University Course” (with C. Gordon and T. Persoff), SITE - the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education Las Vegas, NV. |
| 2005 | “Accommodating the Needs of Low Level EFL Readers in On-line Instruction” (with N. Bousso), Association of Learning Technology Conference, Manchester. |
| 2000 | “Computer Mediated Communication for Distance Education: Developing and Teaching A Second Language Course,” International Educational Media Conference, Montreal, Canada. |
| 1999 | “A Second Language Course in Academic Reading via E-Mail,” UTELI Conference, University of Haifa. |
| 1986 | “Are Teacher Trainers Motivated to Teach Innovatively?,” The Second International Conference on Teacher Education: Stability, Evolution and Revolution, Wingate Institute. Israel. |
| 1990 | “Using Authentic Television Programmes for EFL Instruction,” Teacher Training Workshop, Educational Television of Israel. |
| 1989 | “Small Groups, Metacognition and ESL Methods,” TESOL Conference, Athens, Greece. |
| 1989 | “Are our Students Listening Without Thinking or Thinking Without Listening?,” SCRIPT Conference on Text Processing. Israel. |
| 1988 | “Learning a Second Language with Bill Cosby,” Educational Television Senior Team's Conference, Ministry of Education, Jerusalem. |