Experiences of a teacher of English

  As I’ve advised you all, you could try and learn one or two or a few new words every day, if you’re a non-native second or foreign language teacher. In that way you can be piling and “rounding up” a vast vocabulary over time. Well, now I’d tell you that you could utilize that new word and it’ll get stuck in your memory by using it. How? For example by using that word or one of those words even in the lessons you teach: you can use that word in a sentence when you’ve got to give your students an example of something you’re teaching. Alike you can tell your students that was a word you’ve learned lately, and eventually that action could motivate your students to carry on learning English, because you’ve set a nice example and they can observe you may be somewhat excited with your new words. Your students will value and appreciate that struggle of yours, tentatively. You’re on the same learning pathway as them! You’re companions of “travel”. Dedicate not a long lesson ...

  I mentioned and pinpointed smiling as a teaching aid for fostering communication in English, our common target language. Smiling, and a clever smiling, can lubricate communication among grown-ups, as more or less I said on post #3107. Well, also among teens or children smiling can have an enhancing potential to create and make up that communication. It’s so because communication and speaking among people is one of the most remarkable differences between us people and animals for example, and we certainly laugh. I was lucubrating and thought I should add this point to the last post information. Here you are. / Photo from: Meset What would we do without them at the school? They are great, lady cleaners or cleaning personnel. This picture is a homage to them.

  We second or foreign language teachers foster communication in the classroom, is it true? Okay then, let’s say all we need to say in that target language, as I’ve told you sometimes, even announcements! Albeit we’ll have to explain more and use more plain English (the target language in my case) and use the smartboard or chalkboard as a useful and helpful aid. In our lessons there should be authentic and genuine communication, and not only “artificial” or “academic” communication, as a drill for instance and that’s it. We teach English for communication and not only for drills. Is that right? There should be discussions, from an intermediate level upward, in the target tongue, but also at basic levels there could be some basic discussions or exchange of messages: something so nice anyway. From the lesson conducting and leading by us teachers we can foster and boost all that communication. Evidently also from the topics that arise in lessons, for example from their tex...

Today I'm only saying that educating children today is not like educating children when we were little children, some forty years ago, right? The same as in teachers' case: teaching today isn't at all like teaching some forty years ago - well now we also have more means tan our old teachers had. Because of that we need for example to read books and websites on educating and on teaching, is that alright? Think of it, let's think of it. / Photo from: Lexus-astronaut Lexus UK Blog. I dedicate this cute picture to all my readers and people who may drop past my blog! I take advantage of this posting to say that I'm optimistic anyway. If you have a peek at my blog or dive for a while in it you'll find answers and understand why...

Coming to the head, if we love our students, with benevolence love plus research as applied to lessons at school plus expertise, we'll achieve to educate each student from our classes the way he or she deserves and needs. And taking into account each student is unique. Multiple intelligences? Rather multiple attention, maybe. So let's call and summon their parents or family members to the school to have some words with them, and even more we'll learn from each student: you make out the way a kid is when also you meet his or her parents, is this right? Let's see their parents at least three times a school year, but more often if possible - which it may be the case, as I can tell you from my own experience of all these years as a teacher. / Photo from: British Council

  I’d like to share with you about multiple intelligences, because they’re applied at some friends of mine’s schools. However I’ve also found a lot of criticism about that issue, you know. Multiple intelligences… multiplying the concerns and problems maybe, maybe not. It's up to the way you implement the theory, and frankly my friends do it nice. Look, do whatever you think wiser both out of the classroom and inside the classroom, and work as a team too. It was a nice (some people say not reliable…) theory by American psychologist Howard Gardner toward the beginnings of the 1980s. Some other experts prefer to talk about mental habits and skills, but there would not be seven or even eight different kinds of intelligences, you know. I also prefer to talk about multiple ways of learning and multiple learning styles and the like, you know. In the Web you can find quite a lot in favor and against. Philosophically it points at a problem, as I said someway: eight intell...

  Parents, and other elder siblings, cannot leave their children and their education to the care of the school and that’s it. This latter one is subsidiary to parents’ education and a great help no doubt! Dad for example may not know how to teach German to their children but he will take care of how they learn German and all about this parenting mission in life: Do they like it? How does their teacher of German teach? Etc. Parents, as Larry Ferlazzo and many other authors have recently and always said, should be engaged with their children’s education, even and up to some extent at school. For example parents’ view and vision of their own work educates quite a lot. I mean parents’ general concept of work and precisely their own work. As well family’s notion of homework may educate pretty much, as you can infer from what’s been said so far. Homework is important, paramount I would also say. It’s enhancing, consolidating and reviewing of what has been taught and event...

  Today I also wanted to tell you that with my advanced level class we’ve had complete immersion in the target language, English. And we’ve discussed about important school points of logistics and about English conversation sessions, so bravo for them! I also have an intermediate level class, with which I also use L1, which is Spanish, our common language, but I’d like to immerse the class in total English, if possible. I will try hard next lesson with them, which is next week. They hopefully will appreciate it. The point is creating an English language atmosphere and ambiance. Is it possible? We’ll see to it next week... Anyway both classes are mixed-ability ones. / Photo from: stormy-day-at-the-Bodie-Historic-State-Park lovethesepics. The picture here is just a nice illustration.

  Each and every student should be the protagonist of his or her own learning process of a foreign or second language. How to accomplish this goal, we could ask. You know, he or she should apply some specific learning strategies to this point. Self-assessment and self-evaluation, so as to be more specific about what has been learned. Also that person has to plan his or her learning and acquiring the language. What am I doing this evening when I had planned to spend half an hour at learning English? Or before an English class: How should I do to better understand listening activities, which are so difficult to me and I usually catch little yet? Okay (that learner can think) I will write some brief notes as I’m listening to the CD or DVD or podcast. And I will try to make up a thread with the main ideas about what the speaker is saying… Autonomous learners achieve more because they propose some goals to themselves and try hard to pursue them. They’re reflexive about the...

  I’m concerned about the fact that with my lower-level class I utilize our mother language too much, to the detriment of English, our target tongue. I don’t know quite well but we can be using Spanish up to some 8 to 10% of the allotted time. Which is much, I’d say. And I’d like it diminish. Let’s do something: next lesson with that class is next Wednesday (because we have a long weekend, etc.) and I shall try to utilize English close to 100% of the assigned time, which is 55 minutes – so 100% is the goal, the desideratum. Albeit I'll have to explain more things in English! We have to discuss about a class problem and we’ll do it in English (I will try rather hard but gently and nicely of course). Also at tomorrow’s lesson with the higher-level class I also will try to discuss about the issue all in English. I can tell you about that small specific problem: few students can attend conversation sessions with a native speaker, namely an American volunteerin...

  Our students have to gain a communicative competence, otherwise they won’t be able to understand nor convey their ideas, thoughts and feelings. The foreign or second language learning process is paramount. And there, at that point, we teachers have to invest some great effort and commitment, right? Besides the culture vehicle is language, and if we want our students would learn and approach our culture, history and traditions, they should gain that communicative competence. As simple as that. We have to provide and give our students the tools for communicating and conveying messages. Because of that also CBI, content-based instruction, is also paramount: we teach the language with contents, with meaningful contents. I said we give our students the tools or language: let’s not forget the students are also the protagonists of their language learning process: the more they do the more they’ll gain that communicative competence. Learning but also acquiring the language ...

  Something our students should take up is reading. And since I’m an English language teacher I would advise reading novels or readers in that language. Readers are simplified and abridged books, for learners of English for example, and they may be pretty interesting. Yesterday I wrote on homework, okay, readers are good homework. And something I would also recommend is that the first task our students should have to carry out is just understanding and enjoying what they’re reading. That’s something so educative, for their minds and for learning and acquiring English. For instance classics of universal literature are rich in values, as I said on another post, and about which you can find further information by clicking on the tag “beauty as an educator”, from the tag list on the right column of my blog. Even something we teachers can do is to create and run a classroom library, with readers at the students’ disposal. And when they have to do a test and some of them ha...

  Personal and individual work by students hits the target. Homework is necessary. At home they can revise and review what has been learned at school, in case it is not a flipped classroom, for which you can find info at the tag of “flipped classroom” on the column at the right hand of this blog. However students might not be able to know how to deal with studying English, which is our common target language. And for us teachers: what to assign as homework, only exercises and translations from English into Spanish, our common mother language? At home or if they’re teens also maybe at a library they should re-read school texts for instance. Anyway homework should be also communicative, like school lessons themselves. Okay, the students should learn and practice grammar points but also use them for communication sake, into communicative activities, like writing an email they’ll read out at school on the following day, and much better if those students actually write an em...

  I’ve just planned one of my lessons, for next Wednesday. And I’ve thought about what grammar patterns my students need to practice more, and about their growing communicative competence. I presume that it’s sound to assess the class-group globally and infer what they need to practice more. I would say there are two strong points about my lessons: I have to make my students practice grammar points and they need a lot of discussion in English, our common target language. When I discuss with them I assume that the main goal is to set that communication in English, though they may make some mistakes or errors. The main point is communication. And I think that with practicing grammar patterns they will be more able to communicate in English: they’ll have more weapons to talk in that tongue. Besides they’re eager to participate and thus some chances for communication show up, which is so positive! Also I wonder if they’ll be able to polish their grammar mistakes and error...

  I’m concerned and a bit worried. As you know I try to create immersion in the classroom. Immersion in English, my students’ and my own target language. Well, you know, sometimes, not very much anyway, I use our common native language, namely Spanish. I utilize it to reinforce what I’ve just said in English. But most of the lesson is in dear language English. Should I not shift into Spanish at all? Sometimes I say something small or rather small in Spanish to reinforce what I said and I think it needs clarification. Yet I should set “a nice example”, as a former teacher trainer, and maybe say all in the target language… What to do? You know, there’s immersion in English but… there would be more immersion if I said all in that tongue. Tomorrow morning I could try to say all or 99% in our target tongue, couldn’t I? Ok, I will do it… and see what happens with my students. Also I had written in my diary that also there’s communication in the target language, English. A...

  We teachers should acknowledge and value our students’ contributions to the lesson! Also because that takes and means an effort, as I’ve said sometimes. And both if our students are grown-ups or if they’re teens. The recognition has to be proportional to the effort invested, obviously. We can’t fall into flattery and adulation otherwise... So from a positive viewpoint we can tell them things like “That’s right!” and others. All this boosts our students’ motivation and pushes them to keep on carrying on with their tenacity and resolution, plus it could redirect some students’ starting and attempting disruptive behavior… All this in the context of nice treating our students and making up a cordial atmosphere. Also all this has to do with sense of humor. We can have small laughs in the context of nice class management and discipline: where there’s discipline we can allow those small laughs. The relationship must be human and humane. And this relationship with them in tha...

  Expert in learning a second or foreign language H. D. Brown stated that we teachers and learners of those languages should imitate a native speaker. And for that we could listen to podcasts and radio stations through the Web, where you can find radio stations from all over the world. Also at YouTube you can find interesting videos. Some days ago I found an interesting video about cockney English. Some learners, and some teachers too, have gotten an accent and pronunciation close to a native one. Even I know a man of a Spanish origin but who has been living for many years in the US, and his friends and the people who know him say he sounds like a native speaker, even they don’t find any difference at all… There’re people with more aptitude to imitate but every one of us can go far in this thing of imitating. Anyway a field where I think it is more difficult to imitate a native speaker is in writing. I notice that my American friends write in a Spanish which you can eas...

  I was thinking… I have two big helps for my English language lessons: the dictionary and the whiteboard. I say to my students that the dictionary of English is like another teacher: it solves so many problems! I call it Mr. Dictionary. I could utilize my smartphone to look up words that show up in the classroom, but if I’m honest… I prefer the printed dictionary book: I can find words more quickly than in my mobile, turning to and accessing the Internet. Often my students can find that word in their smartphones faster, and that also helps us a lot. The whiteboard? It’s like an appendix or extension of myself, I would say. We don’t have a poor smartboard, but for our classes the whiteboard is okay, quite okay. Otherwise: no whiteboard no classes: I couldn’t stand without it! It’s, how should I say? That’s right, kind of myself or part of my body. I use it so often! For everything: phonetic transcriptions, new words, examples, even drawings, presentations, explanati...

  I’ve told you we teachers have to make our students think and engage their brains in intellectual activities. And once else that’s okay I guess. We can teach our students, and help them learn superior intellectual activities, such as plan their work and their learning process up to some extent, synthesize, schedule their activities and free time, reason, understand what they read, summarize, evaluate their own work and study, apply their correct learning strategies, revise what they’ve learned, draw conclusions, comment on a text… Those skills and activities make their work be something human, and are pretty educative. Also in the classroom we can help them apply those skills and activities, like for example reading a text aloud and silently, also on their own, and making up a follow-up discussion... Remember I’m an English language teacher, and if it is possible, discussions are a paramount activity, because they develop their communicative competence, and that’s o...

  I’ve told you a lot about class management and discipline. Okay then, I would add that the teacher can have and should have a moral authority, with seriousness and gravity, young you may be though. You are the person you are, but as the time passes, you’re gaining gravity and seriousness, with all your work done and carried out throughout the years of your career as a teacher. In other words, let’s see, it’s kind of a charisma. And all that force is felt around you in the classroom. You may think you don’t have all that moral authority, but don’t worry too much: as I said you may be gaining it along years: carry out your everyday work the best you can, working with your students and having them working, and at the same time appreciating and esteeming them, and all that gravity will be gained, from the very first career years. Its source is your seriousness at work. All that seriousness is transmitted to your students, even if you smile, because it’ll be a clever and...

  We teachers should create a nice atmosphere in the classroom where our students can work, learn and grow without stridencies. In that intellectual atmosphere our students will focus and concentrate on their learning and working. They need silence and quietness. We can achieve that ambiance if we talk to them in a rather low voice. I’ve seen it: when you talk to your students in a rather low volume, they tend to get quieter, so as to listen to and understand you. We teachers can try to make up all that nice ambiance in the classroom. For example when we want them to write a composition, a comp. That atmosphere will allow for thinking. We have to make our students think, which will allow for their neurons to connect with one another, if those students are children or young children, and if they’re teens they will make up their own personalities – also if they’re younger they will make up their personalities, of course! For writing a composition they need to be prompte...

  Some days ago an adult student of mine, after a lesson, asked me how we teachers could remember and recall our students’ names, even at the beginning of the school year, which isn’t the case anyway. I told him it is an ability that in some sense we teachers have. It is practice, the practice of remembering our students’ names, characteristics and traits, as many class-groups have passed through our hands throughout years. However also it is because of the affection we have to each of our students: you can recall the names of those people you value in some way or another. As well I’ve noticed that memory, up to some extent, is like an elastic ability you can train. A teacher once told me that she could remember many target language words because she had expanded her memory because of many times trying to learn new words and terms. She had acquired kind of a photographic memory. And any teacher could acquire that kind of memory, if he or she practiced the process of lea...

  A teacher must be able to empathize with his students in the classroom. He should be able to feel the sentiments of his students and how they react to his teaching and prompts. Even he should be able to change what he had planned for that lesson if necessary! Even more he should plan his lessons with his students in mind, taking into account also that two class-groups are never the same and each one needs a special attention and assisting from him. If that teacher feels his students are not understanding what he’s saying, he should change and make a clearer discourse. As well he will rope his students in the class or lesson by having them intervene and participate, also he will let some students participate more if they’re eager to do it and it’s good, suitable and appropriate for them. I said something about anxiety on the last post. He will detect some possible anxiety in some of his students and will try to make them feel better; also I said that we teachers have...

  Second or foreign classes by nature are mixed-ability ones and have different communicative levels, maybe pretty different ones... It’s something I see every day. And the teacher shouldn’t confine his or her teaching to either high-achievers or low-achievers. Let’s think of it, because this is paramount. What to do? Maybe teach at different levels, combining two kinds of levels… which isn’t simple but we could try it. So the point isn’t confining to teaching high-achievers or low-achievers. Even something nice we could try is for high-achievers to monitor or to explain things in English to low-achievers – English is our target tongue. The point is that we teachers should not teach and expect a level they cannot give: we teachers should be sowers of peace and joy, and not sowers of anxiety. Something else which is quite educative for high-achievers and also makes them invest a nice effort is for them, as I said, to explain things in English to low-achievers, what do ...

I f you’re a children teacher plus a foreign or second language teacher I would tell you something indispensable to utilize at the classroom is realia. Real things or realia. When I taught young children in Jaén (south of Spain, a nice town), some twenty years ago I was recommended to use them, otherwise my students would not have understood me in English, our common target language. I was told by kind and great Mary Jane Amaya to use real objects and stuff as a vehicle for my students to understand me and learn English. Young children cannot think of abstract things, so they need to see realia or real things. I can recall that I brought and should have brought to the classroom: ingredients of food packs, some basic foods, a salad ingredients (great Lucas Huijtbregts even used to make and cook a salad with his young students and in the end they ate up the salad they had made; sorry Lucas if I misspelled your last name), stationary material, fruits, posters (visual aids), etc. ...

  Men and women, by nature, have to connect with other people. As simple as that. And they are happy if they seek other people be happy too. It’s something by nature. Men and women are social beings. It’s natural for men and women to wish and seek what’s good to others. Men and women are happy if they have friends. Friends to whom they may wish happiness. It’s the way things work and turn out well. Teachers are happy when they seek goodness to their students – plus their colleagues and students’ parents. So are things. It’s something we can’t change. Everyday teaching seeks goodness and happiness to students. I know you teachers try that way. Even because you’ve read so far, until this line of the post. And every single day, since you’re committed teachers, try hard to do things well. I’ve seen it. Why do I say all these things today? Look, there’s a huge and deep thirst for plenitude, happiness and love, among men and women today. And you can see it in novels and m...

  I’ve already told you that good learners, good language learners utilize learning strategies, and this point is something that makes them learn a lot! On the label or tag column, at the right hand of my blog, you can click on “learning strategies”. And one I use and recommend to use is for those chances we don’t know a specific word in English – which is my target language. When I don’t know a word in that marvelous language and I do need it I use a paraphrase; in other words I explain its meaning, as simple as that. My students have already been taught about this great learning strategy. Also it’s a communication strategy, as you can see. From time to time I remind my students of it. And this is this evening’s post: a simple point for everyday use of English as a foreign language! / Photo from: o-MOTHER-TEEN-SON-facebook www huffingtonpost com. The picture is just a nice illustration.

  We foreign or second language teachers foster communication inside the classroom, and that’s okay, and that’s one of the main methodologies today: the communicative approach. However we could foster real communication, couldn’t we? Instead of the students giving a simple answer we could ask them further, by amplifying the answer: let’s settle real communication, let’s make our students think over. Communication should be real and respectful, thorough and humane, educative and rich in values, deep and not just superficial. At least let’s ask them further questions, to create a nice discussion. There should be real discussions, deep ones, what-else-like ones, rich in contents. Let’s introduce some follow-up. For example if they give as an answer the way the story protagonist thinks, let’s ask them more about that way of thinking: kind of, Do you think the same way? Do you agree with her? Why? In few words, let’s deepen into our students’ answers. A friend of mine us...

  I dedicate this post to my Irish readers, plus an amazing photo from Ireland. Thank you, Irish people! I learned a lot when I was with you, in your fantastic country. I also greet the many Irish people who live in the US too. / Photo from: HD Wallpapers Only

  Something that unites me with my students, and which you could do if you like and think it’s okay with you is that after the lessons, often, I thank them for their attention and contributions to the class. I can tell you the class gains a nice rapport! Also sometimes at the end of the class I make up a brief summary of their work that day, just some words. I tell them kind of, okay, we’re advancing and progressing at this or at that. They’re so nice and give me back and return thanks for my teaching the lesson. All this I guess could be done with also young students, teens for example. Alike you could say what they have got to improve, at the same time that you say their achievements. You can imagine how much this motivates them and makes them realize they’re carrying out a nice intellectual work. As I said all this unites students and teacher, in a big way! You may try it at classes and see how it works! I remind you that currently I teach grown-ups. / Photo from: ...

Besides your students will feel addressed by you, one by one, through that nice smile, and it counts for motivating them plus making themselves feel under nice discipline and class management! / The picture might show a teachers team.

  I would advise you to treat with affection the people that work and live and coexist with you. Namely for example tomorrow Monday have an affectionate glance and looking at your colleagues – the other teachers – when you arrive at school. Also at your students’ parents and families, at next parent meeting, and as well at your students, tomorrow, as I said, when arriving at the first classroom. Comb the classroom with an affectionate smile, a smart and clever one, perfectly compatible with sane class management and discipline, because it’s an intelligent smile, not a lenient one. Even more, that smile can be a signal of some firm class management and discipline, and it might show you have the class reins and control. They will appreciate that smile! / Photo from: 010104_0610_0035_nsls masp.