2982. Fifteeen Years Ago...



All of us are America. A prayer for the victims of 9/11. We shall meet them in Heaven. / Photo: Memorial in New York. never forget them

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724. How d'you do?

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One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “Lately I’m getting more aware of some of my students’ circumstances. I’m referring to kids that never advance or are attentive in the class. They can have problems with drugs or drink, sleep deficit, receiving bad treatment at home, or treating their parents bad. And there they are, with me for some hours a day. A teacher told me, on the other hand, that the family is the first factor that influences on these kids (!). She said some examples to show attitudes that can help, definitely. Look. Dad not only talks with the adolescent about the grades. There can be family meetings, like at dinner, when everyone can intervene and tell what he or she thinks. Dad and Mom listen to that kid, who is asking for being listened to, please! This teenager is eager Dad and Mom and his oldest brother would listen to his worries. He feels insecure about himself. Because of that he dresses that way, and shouts, like meaning here I am, I’m someon...
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3702. How to Get Your Students Pull Their Chestnuts Out of the Fire - Some Hints

  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...
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3704. Do You Ever Have a Bad Day in Class as a Teacher?

  I’ve written a lot in this blog this far, I hope it may somehow help you teach your lessons. And I’ve also written a great deal on excellence, and we teachers – in principle – wish our lessons help our dear students.  But what if my classes are a disaster, or if some of them are so, or my students put me to the test all the time?  Today I’d like to say something on that. No one is perfect, and what teacher doesn’t have a bad day? Perhaps when you would wish to hit two kids’ heads to each other? I don’t recommend you to do that.  Not long ago – and I currently teach adults – I remember I had a bad day, one of those days when nothing in class seems to work well, or nearly so.  I’m now going to try and say something that hopefully might help out somebody else in our planet. Another teacher I mean.  And I want to point out that all good I have has been received and inherited from somebody else – it’s not my merit.  Some days ago, I was saying, in class I...
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3703. To Set High Standards in Class You Meant? How Can I Do That?

  I’m an English language teacher, as you well know. And you may be another language teacher. Even you may be learning English, like I am doing myself. Well, let’s suppose that that teacher ought to do his or her best for their dear students to learn that dear language.  That teacher ought to think how my students can learn best. And each lesson is – must be – a step forward as far as my students are learning English. How are they progressing, since I began to teach them? Do they already master English?  You know, you may rightfully tell me that it also depends – and much! – on them, and you are fully right – it’s them who have to learn, yet I can wonder how I can facilitate that process, that inner process, for each lesson needs to be a step forward.  What can I do for they really would learn English? You know, part of this job is transmitting and passing on the lure and the inner desire to learn English – the more enthusiasm you invest on the task, the more they wi...
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3698. Why do Those Students Participate More in Class?

  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...
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