Experiences of a teacher of English

I have encountered moms that said that it would be impossible that their sons and daughters would drink alcohol or have a close confidence with a girl or with a boy.  I'm referring to teens.  I would say those moms and dads too to open their eyes, and find out with whom their children go out. Sometimes their friends, the kids’ friends I mean, are rascals and smoke crack (sorry) and get drunk, I'm afraid.  Henceforth a mom could tell his son to bring his friends to have a snack at home some evenings, so that mom can meet and know his friends. / Photo from: K12-es-mom-son-computer-hug www k12 com

First premise: adults can acquire English or another language, not merely learn it.  I have written some posts about this fact.  How do adults acquire a language?  By listening a lot plus intuition about what is being said. According to my class experience, they can reach speaking in English at least for a while.  The process of intervening in class has been: words, phrases, sentences, speaking for a while. / Photo from: landscape-trees-nature-lake-flowers-path-sky-clouds-2146140 www wallspick com

Something that seems sound is to take our students to an art exhibition or an archeological museum or to an excursion to the countryside.  The point is making them more contemplative and also because fine arts for example, educate them, making them more delicate and capable of appreciating both beauties of nature or artificial ones.  Besides, since we’re teachers of English or another language, we can implement some work or a work project, from the simple: “Write about your experience at the countryside today” to work projects.  Therefore the point is to educate their sensitivity, and sometimes be less rude. / Photo from: Ideal-landscape miriadna com

I have written more than two thousand and thirty posts, and I still think I’ve got lots of things to tell you.  Every day something happens in class or I turn to bibliography to pass knowledge and performance to you.  Thank you for stopping by my blog, and thank you to the people that follow me more or less.

What may the main problem within the marriage be?  I think it has to do with lack of communication.  I will explain. Imagine both work out.  The housework is carried out by both, though she’s the main factor here. Women have precisely femininity. They’re more “designed” to look after the house and the children. However he, the husband, helps out more and more.  Nevertheless there’s little of communication, of deep communication. Ok, they carry out the housework, but she needs to tell SOMEONE about her day out and the family’s issues.  Such is the marriage’s life.  A time for her to tell her husband all things must be found.  I propose one: the kids are in bed already, and the couple remains alone in the lounge. Today’s housework has already been done. Right now she can release and deliver her little (usually) trouble and problems. Let’s be honest: he NEEDS to tell his stuff of today to someone too.  Now it’s ...

Some teachers attend their classes with some ideas to implement.  I advise you, if you like, to plan each and every class on written notes.  I personally think of the students I have and their necessities and expectations, and then I plan the activities I shall implement in the class.  The point now lately is for them to listen to me massively, and start to make them speak in English, with some meaningful contents for them.  What else?  I don’t have any perspective of my own classes: if one of you fellows would attend my classes could remark any other point. Oh, I bear in mind the previous class or classes, so as to make a continuum or plot in the line of their learning and acquiring English. / Photo from: young woman with laptop English teacher www young-germany de

What is really personality?  Why is a person different from another?  Should we parents and teachers know about personality?  Personality is partially inherited from parents, grandparents, etc.  As well personality is the sum of particular actions: however you do, that influences on your personality.  Alike somebody’s struggles along life influences on personality.  Finally personality is the result too of the education we people receive. / Photo from: adolescent girl learn nctsn org

Most kindergarten years and first ones of primary education are entrusted to women. In other words, women tend to take the reins of the first years of education.  And it is ok, in my opinion.  They have a quality which makes them more appropriate for young students: their femininity.  Women at twenty-something or early thirty-something are more adequate to take care of babies and young children. At that age many of them get married and have the first babies.  And nature, this is, the providence of God in other words, make them more prone to look after those young students.  Classes of English or all the time inside the school should be immersion-like, 100% in English. / Photo from: kindergarten teacher wednesdaywakeup com

When at class, teacher, you could see your students with affection, also that one or those ones that act out in some classes and are more difficult to grip their reins tight, so as to give a metaphor.  See in them the future professionals: a doctor, a plumber, a mechanic, a nurse, a farmer, a military professional, a soccer player, some secretaries, a company boss, a construction worker, a cook, a waitress, a plane pilot.  Even some time in class and in English you could discuss about what they’d like to become when grown. / Photo from: runrun es. 

How to get the students work more?  Love them, with love of benevolence.  So wish the best for them – kind of butting in their lives in order to help them out in their needs, but at the same time respecting their inner teenager life. / Photo from: students blog lib umnedu

Authorities have been chosen by people, sometimes, not always. What I mean today, you know, is that if you obey an authority for love to God you can get the impossible. / Picture from: hampteadroads com

When working on something day after day, you take the habit.  In a college degree the more you dedicate to a subject the more you’ll like it, tentatively.  The same or something similar should happen in English language classes: the more the students work, the more they will like English. Try to make classes nice, with nothing special, just hard work and dedication.  Your students would perhaps like learning English moreand more. Just try for a period like this. / Photo from: man-swinging-golf-club roseknowshealth com

Real Academia de la Lengua Española has just published a new issue and edition of the new dictionary for speakers of Spanish, mainly in Spain but also from Mexico downward in America; well also for the Spanish-speaking people from the USA. 9,000 new words have been included in that dictionary, with many words from English, like chatear or tuitear . I just wanted to express that remarkable information.  If you’re bilingual, you’re so fortunate.

A person who treats teenagers can see the innerhood of those people.  They're like volcanoes: everything is emerging from inside, and sometimes that adult can notice and realize of their issues, doubts, joys, frustrations.  It's a time when parents should be close to the kid, and albeit teens have their inner world, parents should be at disposal of them. A light prompt should be received by his or her parents so as to help out and explain things.  It's kind of being their friends. / Photo from: Teen-girl-thinking sportfitness com mx

Infants, children, teens and adults can acquire the foreign language. And not only learn it.  In order to acquire the language it is necessary to listen and read massively.  A time arrives when you don’t care too much if you’ve got to read or listen something in English. Your mind has adapted itself to the language.  I repeat, also adults can still acquire the language. I see that in my students: they are kind of thinking in English, most of them, and I see it because of the answers and responses in English they give me. / Photo from: languages sg

We teachers dedicate a long time to teaching. We are committed to teaching, don’t we? Spanish writer Gabriela Mistral wrote: Donde haya un árbol que plantar, plántalo tú. Donde haya un error que enmendar, enmiéndalo tú. Donde haya un esfuerzo que todos esquivan, hazlo tú. Sé tú el que aparta la piedra del camino. I hope to translate it soon. It's nice.

Once a student not looking very satisfied was filling out a test, looking rather bored too, leaning his head on his left elbow.  A question was what adolescence is. And he wrote: it is a disease parents suffer when their children are 14 or 15.  Jokes aside, parents should – amongst other things – know how to manage and deal with this period of life.  Education today is not like in other periods of history, a matter of just common sense. This latter one is necessary, yet parents (or the parent) have got to read and study books or web sites about this age, according to their own vision of life.  There’s a collection of books for family today I recommend, translated into English, like the book by Fernando Corominas Bringing Up Children Today – you can have a peek at www.edicionespalabra.es . I can assure it’s worth a reading, it’s a must-read, and the expert is very expert. / Photo from: bored-student christopherteh com

I know you try to better your students’ spoken English, but don’t interrupt their discourses: they’re communicating with one another! And this already is a nice step.  You can be writing down or scribbling some mistakes or errors, and comment on them, but I’d tell you that you should proceed into communication: you shall correct afterward.  The same happens in written tests: first have into account that tentatively they, the students are trying just to say something – so remember, not much red ink.  Do correct some mistakes and errors anyway, I would say. Even you can write short comments in English on the back of the test papers, stimulating, encouraging, explaining why some stuff is wrong, why some stuff is right. / Photo from: benuambassador wordpress com

And what to do when you’ve got to teach and you’re a bit sick?  First premise I’d tell you: to ask your guardian angel for help.  Of course do your best.  Try to smile because the students also have their pains and sorrows, tentatively, for example at home. And if you smile, you will feel much better, and you’ll notice your students need you.  Plan that class and try to submit to it, but if you see that another new pathway opens up, you can try to follow that way and exploit it. You might teach a different class as you had planned but it may turns out alright. / Photo from: alternative-teaching-certification www topeducationdegrees com

One day a teacher had to replace and substitute another one of a class of young children, and he hadn’t planned anything, so what to do?  What I can remember is that he told them a story he was making up along the class-period. He had to act out. The thing turned out good.  He calmed down some student that was starting to be tired of the story – he did it by gazing and staring at the student so the kid felt implied in the game.  After sometime he delivered plasticine or artificial clay for them to make figures. It was good for their small psychological dealing and managing small things and so. I right now don’t remember if he asked them questions during his telling the tale – that’s sound. It was a relief when the bell rang after one hour.  To improvise is a skill you get after many a class. / Photo from: plastilina-monstruos2-monsters-playdough www motionkids-tv com

Let's keep our teens in touch with the best works by human people, let's keep them in touch with the best people, let's keep them in touch with God. By Saint John Paul II, in his Letter for addressing young people.

Our teens’ struggle and effort when learning and acquiring English is paramount –  involving in laziness is hazardous.  “La privación del esfuerzo se paga a un precio mayor que el de la sangre: consiste en la deformación de la propia personalidad, cuando no en la aniquilación de la misma.” According to Spanish philosopher López Ibor, J. J. (1976) Alienación y nenúfares amarillos .  That is, “Lack of effort and struggle cost more than blood itself: it’s the deformity of somebody’s personality, even the annihilation of it.” / Photo from: Operarios-da-construcao-civil- www brazilianvoice com

Hoy es el Día de la Hispanidad. Gracias en gran parte al Instituto Cervantes se está impulsando el aprendizaje del castellano o español. / Foto: www turismoparatodos org ar

Parents should meet their children’s friends, for instance because one day the friends go to the family’s house for some snack, and the evening can be so nice and charming.  The parents that read a lot achieve their children read too. And if the kids read a lot they’ll have fewer spelling mistakes, and they’ll learn a lot, and even mature sooner.  According to age, since the kids are very young, their parents should educate them about human sexuality, which context is love.  Better if Dad explains that to the boys one by one, and the same Mom to the girls, and little by little, as the occasion comes up. In marriage, human sexuality is aimed to the parents’ love to each other, and as full persons, plus bringing more babies, and educating them for life.  For the moral quality you can consult www.delibris.org . Young members of the family, as this, will grow happier. / Photo from:  Family-Reading idahovoices org

A youngster wished to study History at college.  However her father just suggested her to study philology of English. She was Spanish.  This latter degree is more practical, for instance in order to teach English, and has more chances of getting a job as a teacher. This girl got enthused regarding her degree: the more she studied English and linguistics the more she got enamored with her college degree.  Later on, she said, after some years as a teacher, that she had the vocation as a teacher, that her job was very vocational. If you invest effort and enthusiasm at doing something like the example I’m writing about, you can be happier at your profession. I have seen this phenomenon in various people. / Photo from: teaching_and_education www postgrad com

A work team ready at once. I mean that there should be some free time for the teachers of a department would meet together and relax.  And just talk about the last class, one of the teachers, and the others are listening: you may learn a lot from listening to your colleagues, perhaps one thing you hadn’t thought of before and now it sheds a light usefully! / Photo from: lisa-works-with-the-group wknews wordpress com

One day a young female teacher felt distressed because she had a lot of exams to correct and grade.  She said it to another teacher inadvertently, and this one, also an English teacher, offered himself to correct and grade some of the tests.  I think this latter teacher did good, albeit he wasn’t the teacher of those classes proper. That is very nice. I don’t know what happened later on. / Photo from: teacher-and-blackboard posdru137974 ccvaslui ro

A teacher, at his profession, has his own ethics and morals.  For example, he’ll try to be fair with each and every student.  Also he sets an example to his students.  He’ll take care of his dressing as well, and he’ll try to be polite and nice.  Last but not least, it’s better he have tutoring sessions with students of his gender, better than with girls. At tutoring sessions you can reach the intimate backgrounds of a boy or a male adult. / Photo from: ricochet com

With the chances the Internet provides us we can stumble against the rock of getting to learn more and more and in a compulsive way.  Students at the school can be assigned a project-work about our solar system, and if they’re young they can be overloaded by such a quantity of information, and they can get choked and unable to put some order and tidy up their minds.  So the teacher should tell them about how many web sites they can look up or make them focus on such and such subtopic or let them know how many hours they can devote to the project-work.  That, I guess, is a nice way so as to educate the students for the use of the Web. / Photo from: www asiasociety org. kids focused on a project work

I’m excited with writing to you readers, with the excitement of the chance or possibility of helping out over there.  I can assure you it’s a hard work, but as I said I get excited in case I would help any of you with my posts.  My doctoral work or thesis is in this blog, so with the way of a blog, chunk by chunk.

The teacher has some rights and some duties to fulfill. As he develops his job, that person should be aware that he has to develop his moral conscience.  His labor is with persons. Thus he must have a real and nice idea of what and who a kid is, his potentialities and aptitudes. The teacher is a humanist.  He must take into account that he has in front of him a person with a biography, his parents and the rest of the family, his own future...  Where can the teacher find values about what a person is? I would advise you to consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church . Western society as well as eastern society can find deep and stable basement in that book. Otherwise in www.vatican.va : there you can find documents about what a human person is, values, virtues, inspiring ideas... / Photo from: teenage girl at doctor's office

If you’re the department head, count on your colleagues: listen to them because you might learn from them.  As time passes you ought to listen to your teachers – remember that tentatively they’re maturing as teachers and can give you their vision of teaching the kids.  Another point: it may be more effective if your teachers attend a meeting with something written about the issues you’re going to work out: you may save time – the teachers attend the meeting with their written proposals and so you all avoid so long meetings where the teachers start to think about a topic then.  You may announce that on such a date you will have a meeting about how to diminish the students’ anxiety to contribute to the class in English, for example. / Photo from: 

Something we teachers have to do is to teach our students to take care of the environment, this is, to be environmental-friends.  One example is when leading them along an excursion not to let them drop any wrapping plastics or cans.  These lessons usually get stuck into their minds, and they could turn into a positive habit. Someone said: to give an idea and you will receive an action, to make them do an action and you will receive a habit, to give them a habit and you will receive a virtue and a value. / Photo from: planting tree www doyourpart com

A student really learns and acquires English when he embraces and internalizes the language.  This demands a lot of input and intake before, as much as possible. In such a case the language turns to be like a second nature in the sense of possessing a second language to communicate with others.  This process might take some years, likely. However each new word is a step forward, remember. A time is reached when the language comes in and out with not much effort: the learner is becoming bilingual, step after step. / Photo from: girls playing basketballi www lehman edu

Yesterday one of the meetings I had was with the vice-president of a special center for college students. It was nice, thank you.  When returning home I passed by a center of languages, a prestigious one in Granada, to greet the workers and let them know I’m going to have informal classes of speaking with the students nearby.  The school I passed by was Inlingua, a famous one, as I said. I introduced myself, etc., and I could see one young female teacher with a line of young kids learning vocabulary I guess.  She was singing and acting out.  The school is decorated with colorful posters and so. Another nice visit, I assure you.  I know other Inlingua centers in Spain. Their methods and methodology are so interesting, and their students massively pass Cambridge examinations of English. / Photo from: kindergarten class ts www pbs org