Experiences of a teacher of English

One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “The academic year’s coming to an end. A few years ago, in the middle of May, one family asked me to teach private classes of English to their eldest son. That implied we were in the countdown of the term, and the final exams were near. I held a first interview with him. I was tired of the year, I told him. What’s more, I could actually teach him few classes. What to do, by me, enough to help him pass the subject of English? Ok, I told him (in Spanish), I can help you with your English just a little: now, more than ever before, you must take the best from you, so as to assist me to teach you and so help you hit the target of a positive result in your final exam. He had to exploit and utilize his human personal potentials at studying. He had got to help me in my teaching him... I guess this thought pushed him up to carry on more focused in the way he was studying and learning. It was true I was done, and I frequen...

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “Joy also at school is a necessary value and habit (virtue) for everyday life among the people who meet there with one another. Joy is important for today’s human person. It helps people to join up with others. A colleague of ours, a teacher of science in English – her high-school ( instituto in Spain) is bilingual – told us that above all her female students turned to her between classes to just tell their things; I think happy people attract others. Joy facilitates being able to live together, to create a community of living together, working, teaching and learning. Think of that other teacher over there: he got a good rapport in his classes; he was demanding, humane, and was respected because of his committed teaching career.” For this post I took some idea from pedagogist García Hoz. / Photo from: poplicks com. students with laptops   

On coming days I hope to write you about private classes, and the value and virtue of joy, within the teaching/learning community. This joy is also like a consequence and result of striving for teaching and learning well. Sláinte! [Cheers!, in Irish Gaelic] / Photo from: goeco org. bolivian kid    

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “Our teens, our adolescents, seem they rather prefer not to depend on us, adults - firstly on parents, also on teachers. They are discovering their ‘ego’, their ‘me’ as an independent person. They trust in their friends more than in their families. Some moms claim: Now my son doesn’t love me any more, what’s going on!?, and they get so down. Teenagers wish to look different than when they were children; they wish to sense so original, so authentic; they look arrogant. These things are because they feel a great insecurity, and they want to say Here I Am! All this is not always that way. No, no. What does our adolescent kid expect from us? He or she expects us to help him or her concerning their capabilities and capacities as singular persons! They expect to be helped as persons, with their personal traits. Don’t get upset when dealing with them: they depend on you, teacher, on you, parents and families. According ...

One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “Try to provide your students with some words they can need to describe a word, or to speak in English during the class. For example, if they’ve got to describe ‘freedom’, you can give them words like ‘opposite’, ‘I do whatever I want to’, ‘respect others’ liberty’, ‘choose the best’..., or lesser [fewer] words than those, if you prefer so. Alike, when one student wishes to intervene in the class by explaining something... great!, let him speak, and help him to convey his message with some word given by you. Albeit their English can be broken, there exists communication in English. Bravo. Otherwise if someone would speak in their L1, this is, in Spanish, you may let her go on, but after that, gently ask her to say the very same thing now in our also dearest English. Something else, you, respect and accept all the short messages and attempts they do to talk in English, like some beginning of a sentence in order to e...

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “I’m glad with my adult students of English. All of them are now retired, but so eager still to actually learn that language. In today’s class they’ve been speaking in English from the beginning, when someone was telling something to someone else about Granada’s soccer team, which stays in the Premier League or Spanish First Division for one more season, after the summer. Maybe the first student began by speaking in Spanish, his L1, but I gave him a slight prompt to him to shift into English. Some of his classmates contributed to the discussion by speaking in that language. I’d say about 90% of classes now are in English, and it’s them who just wish to learn! They’re the protagonists of the class (plus by me as the teacher). Something that helps, that adds is that a nice number of the students have an advanced or upper-intermediate level of English: if they speak, they help to some way stir up the class to speaki...

One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “I do know you’re a novice teacher, and a rookie among the students of your large classes, and that you think all’s going bad, and... etc. But I also know you’re striving to improve teaching and have the teens actually learn English. Don’t me break down. Sláinte! The beginnings of our career (of any career) are tough. Each thing you do in your classes, however, with your effort and God’s help, is a step forward – hopefully. With some perspective of weeks and months and years you will see both failures and successes in a more objective view. Don’t think now this is not your career, at least try more and more. As well don’t let successes put you up onto a plinth where you consider yourself as someone, say, like an ace at your profession: remember you’re beginning. Somehow celebrate your success, but don’t let it go to your head.” / Photo from: ? . Sláinte , you may know it, is an Irish (Gaelic) term, like ‘Cheers!...

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “I think carrying out a project-work at school is a pretty good activity within part of the essence of school: learning to learn and think. Drills and speaking in English are good practice in the class. However, don’t forget the major aptitudes of your students, for example thorough thinking. This thinking will push up their process of acquiring English toward a high level. One possible activity: assign your student to make up groups of three, or set the groups yourself, to carry out a project-work. A topic might be the recent history of your country and its influence on today’s society. The goal could be that one or all of the members of the team should present that issue by means of utilizing the smart board. The duration may be 45 minutes. Their age? 15 years onward. You can tell them some clues before the actual making up the project-work, as examples of possible steps they could implement during the ...

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “One difference in favor of good language learners? I believe a good learner does wish to learn, for example English or Hindi or... This is a remarkable and clear trait of that person. He or she makes good use of any situation where they can speak, or practice in general. He offers himself to some South Korean gang in an ice-cream parlor to help them with their poor English, so as to order some ice-creams of this or that flavor... albeit in the end the assistant-girl also did speak English – this happened here in Granada, near Alhambra palaces. This learner takes notes in his diary or smartphone in English. And he likes to do so. He takes advantage of being on a British Airlines plane to talk to a flight-attendant in English. He listens to something recorded in his iPode, while traveling by bus. He’s not lazy and speaks only in his L1. He does use English, and not only in the cases where it’s totally necessary...

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “A teacher of math, literature, English... cannot confine his work to pass on, to teach, information, knowledge, math operations, the theoretical part of English..., but he or she has to teach their students to learn; to learn what? That information, knowledge, linguistic competence for communication... Obviously it’s true that the teacher for example tells his students about historical deeds, their connection to our present history, etc. The English teacher’s mission is not just to teach English but also to teach how to learn English, and this latter thing in a practical way: aimed at communication. The point is not to teach information about the language but to teach to use English for communication between, among people. Within this context, moreover the teacher’s role is to better his students, and he himself too. The first showing or sign of this bettering of the student is the learning itself, the fact ...

One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “Something a bit hard to me is when I start to teach an adult group and I don’t know if to address them individually in those first classes by asking them practical questions regarding something we’re studying then, like defining words in English. Alike I don’t know whether to ask them about their lives and circumstances. A while ago I decided to ask them one by one, randomly, also to try to meet each one’s needs and expectations concerning learning English. The thing is working pretty well. I think they expected this way of conducting from myself. At the beginning of the academic year, or even now at the end of it, you can get information about each of them by the following useful activity. I assume it’s better to learn who I have in front of me in my classes, as a teacher. I learned this activity in one of the grades of Centro de Lenguas Modernas , of Universidad de Granada . First the teacher, and then each on...

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “One way to avoid your classes be a boredom or something of mere routine can be this. Look. For example, tomorrow in your class you can do something different: ask your teens, or either your adult students, what strategies or techniques they use for learning English: for learning new words, for retrieving them, for defining things, for understanding what you say, what they read… At that moment you can be smiling, and this question is like a challenge to them: What do you think about the way you understand me, and about this and that, etc. – so what learning strategies you utilize in the class of English to learn it. They likely will participate and this fact will push others to say more things about this topic – learning strategies. In this way as well they may become aware that they do use tricks or small inadvertent techniques when dealing with language and communication in the classroom. First try to bring out this...

Here is a worksheet I’ll hand out to my adult students next week. Most of them have a university degree and are retired. They love to have something physical like a sheet to work on. Among my dear students you can find advanced-level ones to false-beginners. We have fun; we try to learn useful expressions and practice speaking . They are about 12 students. Worksheet # 137 Composed on May 5, 2012 1.     Describe “table” with: board – have – four – legs – wood 2.     Describe “peace” with: countries – no war – cooperation 3.     Now “web-site” with: Internet – company – offers – computer – shopping – look for 4.     Give directions to a couple of tourists to go from Ofecum place to Jardines del Triunfo . [I teach at that center as a volunteer, and the latter name is a nice place in Granada, Spain] 5.     If you want to make a woolen scarf or a woolen sweater by hand, you have to know ho...

Here the text by H. D. Brown continues. The first part is on post #834. The reason for this apparent contradiction is that IQ tests measure very specific verbal, mathematical, and logical abilities. Language learning requires other forms of intelligence, such as: -          interpersonal communication ability (for perceiving and understanding other people) -          self-knowlege (for developing your own unique pathway to success) -          musical ability (for hearing intonation and rhythm of the language) -          muscular coordination (for pronouncing the language) All of these abilities are forms of intelligence that aren’t calculated into IQ tests. (Page 47 in his book) / Photo from: thefancarpet com. singin in the rain (1952)  

I think the texts I chose for a paper by me, which were taken from H. D. Brown, in his 1989’s book, have no spare word, nor have any other texts in this book. This book is a must-read for teachers and learners of English or any other language. I’ve already mentioned the book on past posts: A Practical Guide to Language Learning. A Fifteen-Week Program of Strategies for Success . New York: McGraw-Hill. As I said on other posts I wrote a paper about this book for a university journal. Today I’m starting to type one text from H. D. Brown about IQ (intelligence quotient) as related to Iearning a language. Some people may ask themselves: ‘Can I with my normal intelligence actually achieve to learn that language? I’m not too smart so as to really learn Spanish, German, Portuguese...' This expert states: The first piece of good news is that a high IQ, as it’s traditionally measured, isn’t essential for successful foreign language learning. People with average intelligence c...