Experiences of a teacher of English

  I teach English to adults, but what I’m telling you today I guess it could be also applied to teens.  I just said I teach English, and it’s so, but also I ought to help my students learn that wonderful language. It’s thus because it’s them who ultimately have to learn English, or French, or …  More often now than before I tell my students that they have to be very active at learning English, as old H. D. Brown said (1989). Say, it’s them who have to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. We also in Spanish use that phrase, to pull your chestnuts out of the fire.  I’m not going to do it myself. Better said, I should not do it myself.  Sometimes when at the end of each lesson I assign some homework, I tell them they can do this and this but also they could do that, just if they wish to do. It’s them who have to feel what they need most, what they have to do to advance at learning English.  Moreover, about the graded readers or unabridged novels we read, wor...

  You know what? A couple of days ago I came across a new class of students I have to teach English to. They are adults, with a big wish to learn that language.  I had planned to convey the same messages both in English and in Spanish, their – our – mother tongue. I came to the classroom with enthusiasm, prone to serve those great people.  And you know what I encountered? They are beginners and false beginners! Great students though.  My assistant teacher was with me – he is learning how to teach English and is a native speaker himself, from San Diego, California. Ok, they knew nothing or close to.  I had brought photocopies for them, taken from a textbook of A2/B1 level, this is, low beginner to lower intermediate – more A2 than B1, because that copy was from the very first unit.  But my dear students needed I had to explain and present absolutely every detail from basic questions, you know, present simple with Do and Does, and similar basic stuff. Oh, man...

  Ok, bullying may constitute a problem at our school, among the kids, but ultimately it is not a new problem at all.  And we teachers cannot ignore it or stop looking aside.  However, I guess we oughtn’t to super protect our kids. It’s them who ultimately need to learn how to face the violent classmate. Obviously I don’t mean they have to learn how to hit each other, but, you know, the timid kid should learn how to behave with all his classmates.  This is something Alfonso Aguiló points out as well. And he has educated so many kids this far, and made up and founded many new schools.  So ok, we have to be attentive, and kids also should take care of one another, yet they must learn how to coexist with everyone else.  It also depends on the specific school we are dealing with.  And they must learn also to make friends among other kids. And overcome their possible inherent shyness.  Also we can consider whether our kids are learning how to suffer in...

  Teachers may feel today that there’s a lot of bureaucracy around their teaching, right? And it may be so, I don’t mean the contrary. But why not to take advantage of that lot of bureaucracy?  For example, and we are starting the school year in the north hemisphere, you may have been told to make up your school subject curriculum or syllabus, okay. With such and such points to include in it.  On the other hand you may have made up your own goals for the student classes, because you already know those students or you have past years' experience about what works and what doesn’t work in class.  Let’s see. For your lessons you may take into account what you had thought of about the curriculum, beforehand, plus try and think briefly how to include those new points the school asks you to include. And don’t get choked or bogged down with all that.  Although you’ve been asked to use the school syllabus, on your own you may also consider and bear in mind the curriculum...

  I’ve been teaching English for quite many years now, you know. Something I’ve noticed is the following fact. When you ask your dear students questions as prompts, and speaking is one crucial skill to practice in class, and out of class, you may note something specific. By the way, we English teachers do ask a lot in class. A friend of mine – a head teacher himself – once told me that we are all the time asking questions, you know, and he meant that half-jokingly. Well, some students answer those questions. Most students do answer those questions. But some of them add something else, from themselves, so they facilitate real communication in class, and they say more things about the same point. And others, with a lower level maybe, may answer with something short and that’s all.  I mean, all of them are in favor of lessons and the teacher, but you notice there’re some learners who try something else. Usually those latter students work on their own, more than the students who j...

  A teacher? He or she influences on their students more with their lives than with what they teach to do. Whatsoever they do, well, that is so influential on those kids, or those adults too, if the case.  That is like an eternal truth, one of those that occur all the time. It was taken from college teacher Jutta Burggraf, who lived 1952 through 2010, and which teacher has influenced on so many people. She was like special in some way, you know.  Also something that may inspire your students is the way you teach, whether you really know about the school subject and the way that that ought to be taught.  Something essential too, and which professor Jaime Nubiola states: you must love your students. With benevolence love: by seeking what’s good for them. Also by hearing and listening to them.  If you are a terrific teacher and you do like in Oliver Twist, bad way you’re going. Yes, remember: Oliver Twist gently asked for more porridge, and then something tremendou...