Experiences of a teacher of English

  We can count on the transcendent One, who is God our father. He has a limitless love of all dads and moms, even more than that. The clever thing is trusting and counting on him. That makes life much easier and we are not inclined to a fate. We are taken care of with limitless love and tenderness. We have empirical knowledge but also we have philosophical and metaphysic knowledge. And that knowledge tells us we can count on God. He is our father God. And this makes us be more tranquil and easier: we are not advocated to a blind and sightless fate. We Christians have the knowledge of God’s providence upon us. And thus and therefore we can live more tranquil and peaceful. And that on the street, at our job, at home, always, always. / Photo from: face2faceafricacom. The illustration is just so, a nice illustration. We can have a hint from God in creation. And we men and women collaborate with God at his creation: we somehow complete creation, we cooperate with hi...

  The foreign or second language teacher must train his students to acquire some communicative competence. A lot of communicative competence, I’d say. He will not give just language facts, like words, but he will train his students to get that competence. The communicative approach is okay. But consider also that it implies some notional and functional approaches. The student will learn about different topics and as well he will train himself at saying things that are performative: how to book a reservation, how to claim for something, how to apologize, how to ask about something, and zillion of more nice things. All that with serenity. Classes will be practical, although the teacher, or the students, can also give the needed vocabulary and grammar. Students will be exposed to massive English – if the case – and in that way they’ll also acquire the language, and not only learn it. Acquisition has something of unaware learning. And adults can also acquire, and not on...

  Homework? It’s essential. If I had kids as students I would assign and set some homework. It is useful. I teach English, as you may know. At home the students could write compositions or focus on already corrected-by-me compositions or essays. Or also they can read and re-read some text we’ve worked on at the classroom. Etcetera. Only we teachers should realize that they have other school subjects and must also do homework for those subjects… At home they can sediment what learned at school. However, if we follow the flipped-classroom model the homework would be so different: The kids search, read and visualize material at home and they bring that material to the classroom to discuss about it, said in a rather simplistic way – that’s the core thing I think; well also I’d add that the teacher help the students get and obtain something more specific, more defined, at the classroom. At home also they can visualize tutorials and can work online. In that latter case ...

  Lately I’m having more lessons with adults. They’re great and very grateful and kind. Also they’re more demanding than most of kids. Now, these days I’m trying to make out their levels. There are two levels, two groups, but each student has his or her own level anyway! There should be more groups, but this far it’s only two groups. I have to combine multiple leveled-activities. And also I only have one lesson per group in the week at one of my schools! / Photo from: Heathrow Airport. They’re learning English also for traveling abroad.

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  I have recently started English classes with more adults. They’re great. And very motivated. I enjoy to teach them, they’re demanding though. They need English for traveling and because some of them have sons or daughters in some English-speaking country, mainly in the UK, Ireland or the States. They’re great, and very demanding, as I said. Now they’re making out what exactly their level and communicative competence in that language is, to attend the corresponding lessons and levels. I can also learn from them: they tend to work nice and take learning and acquiring English pretty seriously, and most of them don’t want to miss any lesson. And quite perseverant. Even sometimes I learn vocabulary from them... They use nice learning strategies. When teaching the lowest level class I have to adapt my teaching at that level – some of them know little. At the same time I also have to raise the level when teaching high-achievers: by no means can I have them get bored, b...

  We have already progressed along the school year for a while, okay. And if we’re foreign or second language teachers we may have to also learn that target language. And we also need vocabulary, to help our students. One way for learning vocabulary is massive reading, for example a novel or an essay book. If we read massively we’ll learn words inadvertently. But remember, we need to read a lot. In that way we’ll be not only learning the language but acquiring it, in an unaware way. And since we’re learners we will be able to advise our students in a nice way. We can consult the dictionary for some words but others will get stuck in mind inadvertently, as I said. And all that’s very nice, and useful. In that way as well we’ll be acquiring what we could call the language sense: you can state learning strategies from your own learning experience. You’re a learner, you’re like a teacher, you can advise other learners. You read a lot, you get some words, quite many ones...

  The wise teacher is the one that knows how to get the most from his students. He directs their work but also delivers some freedom regarding the point that each student would do whatever he needs more. The wise teacher is the one who knows how to make his students realize that what he teaches is important to them. In adults’ case these ones know how to force themselves so as to work fine in order to achieve the goal they’re following. When the students are kids, the wise teacher knows how to delicately make his students learn that the classes’ stuff is important to them too. The wise teacher manages the classroom nice, mostly. He’s an experienced teacher, and, as I said, he knows how to get the most from those youngsters. That’s precisely educating, getting the best from the learners. And also to direct his students’ learning processes, respecting the students’ freedom, ultimately. He will achieve his students will work nice, anyway. He knows how to do that. And...

  Yesterday I started English classes with two new groups. They were together because they didn’t know what their level of English is. They’re adults. And yesterday I had as the main goal to make up two groups, according to two basic levels: basic and “advanced”. I taught them one class, with all the students together in the same classroom, as I said. And from next Tuesday I’ll teach two groups. I was taking some lesson planning for yesterday’s lesson to the classroom, but soon I realized I had to improvise and adapt that lesson to what I had in front of me. What I try to point out here is that lesson planning is okay, but sometimes, even often, you’ve got to adapt to the class you have in front of you. In the end every student got happy by learning what his or her group is, except for one female student, a lady, that had to leave earlier and I told her she would fit in the advanced level, but better she should go to the basic. Next Tuesday I’ll let her know she shoul...

  We teachers have to learn to work as a team. It is necessary, just necessary. Collegiality is an art that we have to learn. It means we must work also as a team, taking the other teachers into account. Beginning with our colleagues that work at the same department, for example foreign languages, which is my case. Collegiality is an art that must be learned. You do not improvise working as a team: it is something you learn over time and together with your colleagues. It comprises learning to listen to the others, maybe changing our mind about some viewpoint if necessary, sharing opinions and viewpoints, counting on the best each teacher can pose and propose. It’s wonderful to be able to count on other teachers. When I started to work as a teacher (1993) my department head and some other few teachers monitored my learning to teach. It’s marvelous to have other teachers you can lean against. / Photo from: BBC. London Bridge. To build something great it is not en...

  If we want to be good teachers, and we want to!, we have to be very human. Otherwise we would not hit the target of teaching and educating our students, whatever age they are. We have to be cordial. Which is not an obstacle to hold some nice discipline in the classroom. Even more we will only reach nice discipline if we’re good teachers. Saying that you’re a good teacher is something great. Also we have to be honorable and upright, otherwise we will not educate nor even teach. We have to be human and people who listen to their students. I knew a teacher that knew how to listen to, and he was great, yes he was! All that attitude educates a lot. It is very formative. We teachers have to live for our students. They’re one of the main reasons for our living, not to mention our working. In some way we have to be like a mom or a dad to our students. In that way we’ll know how to forgive our students and we won’t keep rancor. That teacher I knew achieved to keep t...

  Sometimes we teachers will have to reprimand some student, and you perfectly know this is so. We must have enough fortitude to tell him something to correct himself. We should carry out this correction without humiliating him and aside, when the teacher is alone with his student. As you know we rather should not correct in public. We can indicate something wrong in the classroom anyway. Often we must exert fortitude, because it is easier not to correct what he did wrong. But we wish his education: his parents have given us his son to help them educate him. Obviously I’m referring to a son or a daughter, or even some more children of a big family. We teachers will carry out this correction apart, and not in public, as I said. And always when talking with this student we will leave some exit, an honorable one, for him to leave our office without having humiliated him at all. Sometimes we can correct that student while strolling at the school playground or along th...

  I had the following quotation from somewhere among my notes. It is adequate and innate for man to seek and wish what is good for other people, for the other person. Man is happy if he has got friends, to whom he can seek happiness. The teacher, what does he do? What does he do ultimately? He seeks happiness for his students. Okay, he teaches, but ultimately, seeking happiness to his students. Because of that he treats them nice. And also he teaches his students for them to be thorough and upright citizens, is that right? Today is Monday. The teacher today went to the school to teach nice, and make his students learn how to learn. Something practical? He treats his students in an exquisite way. Lately I’ve been reading about thorough teachers who achieved their students would learn. And it is a mixture of motivation, nice feelings, and effort. He breathes that life into their learning process. He does achieve his students learn nice, because these latter people do ...