Experiences of a teacher of English

  Oh, I’m in a bit of a hurry, and besides I’ve got to teach and recycle my English, to maintain a nice level of that marvelous language. I already have a level that is equivalent to C2, but, as I said, I have got to recycle it and improve it, all the time. After Christmas I made the resolution of learning one, or two… or a few words daily from The Oxford Dictionary of English , all of a masterpiece. Sorry for the mistakes and errors. Well, dear people, aren’t you in a hurry too? I know that most or nearly all the teachers that read what I post are busy ones, aren’t you? And, however, you achieve to teach your discipline as good as possible – I know you in some way, readers of TeacherLingo. So I will have to learn words from here, from there, picking one here, picking one from there beyond, even consulting the dictionary at the classes and lessons proper or from my smartphone! Sometimes something nice that occurs to me is that I can retrieve words I’ve learned once ...

  Quisiera hacer una breve reseña del libro de Jean Guitton (1901-1999) El trabajo intelectual . Es un libro que te hace redescubrir lo sensacional que es y que puede ser el trabajo intelectual. Va dirigido a estudiantes, pero también puede ser muy útil a los que todavía somos estudiantes, y siempre lo seremos, y a los que escribimos. Para que aprendamos. Va pegado al suelo pero también te hace volar sobre un trabajo intelectual fructífero y enriquecedor, para la propia persona, y posiblemente quizá para los que entran en contacto con ella, personalmente o a través de sus escritos. Genial, como el propio autor. / Photo from: flying-7 combiboilersleeds com

  In the previous school where I taught the teachers used to encourage students who were getting bad grades. And in the case those students made an effort to improve their grades, and their performance and efficiency as well, they were helped and encouraged even more. Even they were helped at their grades. I mean, in case one teacher was doubtful about a test which was near pass, that student could be helped to pass his test: it was a matter of decimals, and he was showing a great effort to better. Besides those kind teachers got joyful and you could feel it. Tutoring sessions, individual ones with that student who was starting to improve were an excellent occasion for encouraging him and making him getting aware about what was getting better and why! Also his parents could be called to come to the school for them to learn that their son was achieving a nice output, and how he could improve even more. Thus his parents and family were enrolled into that improving proce...

  I can already tell you about a marriage I knew: they had some small quarrels and so they made the resolution of being more polite with each other. Just that. They thought it was a matter of politeness. They would treat each other more finely. And they got it! As well they let small conflicts pass away; they let time pass and when they both were more serene, they got back to more fluent communication between them two. They avoided quarreling. On coming posts I hope to tell you about some ideas I have about teaching and learning English as a foreign language. / Photo from: Abidjan in Ivory Coast. The picture is a nice illustration.

I hope to post from tomorrow or nearly. My computer looks it works already. Let's hope it keeps working.

I have a problem with the computer I use for posting. Today I only wanted to tell you that an enthused teacher passes on his enthusiasm to his students. Sooner or later it’s like that. It may take shorter or longer but he will pass on the desire of learning more about such and such topics. / Photo from: Canary learning. The teacher himself also keeps on learning himself.

  Our dear students need a rather peaceful and quiet atmosphere in the classroom to work, to study, to learn, and to develop themselves and grow in maturity, each one regarding his or her own way of being. Each one has his personality and we teachers have to foster his strong positive points and help diminish his or her flaws: what hinders them from learning, mainly but not only: we’ll be in touch with their parents to concentrate forces to combat their defects. A quick “trick” to keep them quiet and silent is dictations. However we teachers, and I know you all try it hard, have to make up that nice quiet atmosphere by having them focused on their tasks at the moment. In a relaxed atmosphere – respectful of silence I mean – it’s the only way they can grow upright and honest. With our work as teachers we can greatly facilitate it. Think of the way you fulfill your own work: you may have written your lesson plan, thought about themselves when planning the lesson… even t...

  Discussions seems an interesting activity, okay, and we should listen to what other people want to say, but we as teachers I think should say the people participating in that discussion should respect the other participants and be also respectful toward third persons. Is that right? Thus we should be moderators. This is something so educative. / Photo from: Umbrella-7-Natural-Leaf-Umbrella Briff me. The picture is a nice illustration.

  An interesting activity for our second or foreign language classes? Discussions! If we can implement them in our lessons, with our students, it means and shows they have at least an intermediate language level. It means and entails our students can talk about interesting topics and can express and convey their opinions, ideas and feelings. We can easily find topics for discussion, but I will show you two: Trump as the new USA president and Syrian and Iraqi refugees’ tragedy now in winter and always. If we’re Europeans for example we can also discuss on Trump’s government because his government realization also affects us and globally as well, for better or for worse - we hope for better. Discussing capability shows our students have some intermediate or advanced levels. It means our students can enjoy their talking in the target language, namely English in my case. I insist on purpose: our students show they have an intermediate or advanced level, and can use the target...

  You may have kept concerned about possible demotivated students... I knew a male college residence director from Switzerland who had some prestige among his residents and the students that attended the residence for studying at the study hall. He was joyful but demanding too, dressed up but close and affectionate too. He had gained his residents’ affection and prestige. He was close to his residents and used to learn about what they might be worried about. With him they could feel confident too, and if there was any problem he was rather prone to help out, if possible. He did nothing odd or weird to make his weight felt: with a smile and an affectionate word he had gained those young men. He was not their buddy anyway. / Photo from: College-Professor Odyssey. I had this picture kept among others, and it suits and fits in here.

  You may have clearly noticed that when our students are motivated and even enthused, they learn better. Smiling by you helps, as I said on the previous post. Also you may have noted that the way you present something, for example even if you’re enthused, your students will follow and listen to you better. I would say we teachers should be enthused about what we teach. Maybe it isn’t an explosive enthusiasm, okay, but as you like or may like what you teach, you will pass on that liking to your students. Little by little you’ll gain them for learning. It’s so, it’s like that, and you may know it. Recently flipped-classroom methodologies are being used and implemented: at the classroom they do exercises and work on texts students may have found about in the Web, and at home they will revise, deepen into and study what they’ve learned at school. The more they work, study and research (with your help and assistance), the more they will like what they’re dealing...

  We teachers should create a nice atmosphere where we work at school. We should be nice with our colleagues, and in that way we will be helping them a lot, is that right? And what can we do? Think for example of smiling. Just smiling. It helps a lot. It’s something great for meeting with colleagues, admins and other school personnel. Even a smiling face can create a nice atmosphere among our students, concerning class management. That smile can mean we can control the class. It may show we are the masters of class management: students could notice we can master discipline among them – but before we should be sure we can master so! Our students may notice we can control the situation; I don’t know quite well, but as I said, smiling may show we’re tranquil and easy about class management. I've seen it: smiling is something very serious... Moreover smiling can open us many ways inside school, but it should be an honest and sincere smile: we pursue helping out at schoo...

  I told you all on post #3058 that communication inside marriage or between the boyfriend and the girlfriend is of a paramount importance, right? Well I knew of a marriage, not long ago, which got this interesting communication one day, by walking along a beach, in winter, like now, and they could talk between them and have small laughs. That’s just one example of getting and achieving communication, and getting to know each other, which is very important. They were strolling along the seaside and talking and laughing for pretty long; they two alone. At other circumstances, day by day, both marriage and courting couples should attain this marvelous communication, to get to know the other person well. Human being needs communication, and, by the way, we foreign or second language teachers can do a lot about all this. This post has been written from some notes I scribbled last Christmas, and I just wanted to let you know about it. Engagement is a basic and fundamental ...

  I was given a present last Christmas, a good one: the Oxford Dictionary of English, a very good dictionary, evidently. In the printed version. I also use Wordreference online dictionary, when for example typing a new blog post. That Oxford dictionary is similar or equivalent in Spain to the Dictionary of Spanish by Real Academia Española de la Lengua . I’ve made the same resolution I’ve taken with other smaller dictionaries: to study and learn one, or two, or some few words each and every day, which will take me a few minutes, but it will yield and generate a vast vocabulary tank with passing time and over time. Together with reading novels in English plus learning from other teachers’ blogs and websites and from TeacherLingo, I will make up a vast lexis tank for later retrieval and use. From time to time, when writing or speaking in English some words come to mind: they’re words I’ve learned throughout years. All this is something I would advise others to do: to fac...

  I’d like to tell you I have re-started my lessons with my dear adult students. After the Christmas break and holidays. They’re so great: they’ve started to work firm and with a great enthusiasm; they’re so great. Besides and moreover, we will again have American volunteer girls, as an extra-school activity, to have conversation sessions with them, because my lessons are aimed mainly at enhancing speaking in English, that fantastic tongue. I will let you know about those classes. On Christmas I’ve also collected some notes which I intend to develop as new posts! When at vacations I keep thinking of my students and try to think of methods and activities I could implement at those lessons. / Photo from: servassistonline cycling. The nice picture is just an illustration for the post.

  On the last post I told you about marriage love, right? Aristotle had to know a lot about it when he said that spouses’ love increases according they both grow in virtues and values – virtues and values thus would enamor each other. Maturity also makes that love increase. When years pass, that love can increase too: each spouse tries the other be happy, and this latter point makes you mature a lot, I’d say. Love is a feeling, first of all, chronologically I mean, according to psychiatrist Enrique Rojas, but love is not only feeling and sentiment, but also it is love of benevolence – think about what I said that in marriage each spouse tries the other one be happy. As well it has something of saying, “Okay, I would like to share my life with you, forever.” In other words, both spouses wish to live with the other one: it’s like saying “Okay, it’s so great you exist!” So we have love is a feeling, benevolence love too, sharing common life too, plus reason: not only hea...

Last Christmas I read about a marriage whose love to each other was so extraordinary… and ordinary too. It was a non-fiction text. In that couple you could see so marvelous love is within marriage. Now I would try to tell you about it, in brief lines. The main point was that each spouse desired and wished the other spouse be happy, up to the point each person would forget about himself or herself, in some way. Each spouse did not seek him or herself in a selfish and egoist way: they sought the other’s happiness, as I said. Something practical they did to maintain and hold their mutual love alive was to dedicate and devote some daily time for communication with each other. Ok, but what if they had children and these latter ones would like to tell about their own things? I can assure you their children signified a union and joining point for those two people. However they also tried to save some special time for communication between them two, maybe when their dearest childre...

  Oooops! I was longing for posting. Here we are. My last lesson before the Christmas break was amazing. Two of the students, two high-achievers, led my class, yes sir, they did. Which is good I mean. I spoke at a rather high English-level. And I had other students with a lesser level of English. Good job anyway, I mean them, those two gentlemen. You know, I normally try to speak both for low-achievers and high-achievers, but on that very day I spoke at an advanced level all the time. One of those men had been to Dublin a week before that lesson, because one's daughter lives there, and had spent close to a week there, so his English was quite good. Let’s stop here. By now. I hope to post every day or nearly that frequent about my interesting lessons – interesting I don’t mean by myself but on my students’ sake, for they’re quite good and pretty motivated. They’re grown-ups, good ones. At present I teach adults but I hope soon I will also teach teens again. / Photo from:...