Experiences of a teacher of English

Obviously it is convenient and correct we teachers should try to keep discipline in the classroom.  However, let’s not focus all our strength on managing the class.  If we achieve to get our dear students focused on work, that work which is being carried out will make them more focused and roped in the lesson. In that way also we will help them become more interested in what is being developed in the classroom.  And furthermore, more likely than not, they will be more motivated.  Otherwise, if we devote too much effort and time to keeping them calm, we will not teach at all. It's kind of a balance, a nice balance. Have a nice weekend. / Photo from: Skyscrapers The RG Group

I’ve been posting for ten years now. And you readers have made this possible, otherwise I’d have stopped posting long ago. Thank you very much for paying me a visit to my blog.  Also I owe my students the experiences they’ve given me: I’ve learned a lot from you too. I come to class to teach… and to learn as well.  There should be loyalty between the teacher and his or her students. The teacher comes to school to give him or herself to their students: each one is a unique diamond in need of making it better. Because learning hopefully makes us better persons.  If the teacher tries to do his or her best, he or she is being loyal to their students. Thus I will hard try to say the truth always: I have to be loyal and faithful to my students.  I have to try hard to work my best possible, and I must try to be the best person ever: I owe to my students.  And what to do with our flaws as teachers? Well, we have to rectify our behavior and do ou...

We teachers should educate our dear students in working well. Both if they have to write essays or to research about some issue or topic. Those are examples of chances when our students have to learn and acquire how to work well.  We have to teach them how to write neatly, and also by reading the exercise instructions well, if the case. So, first they have to read the instructions carefully, and then respond to the requirement of the instructions.  Reading and understanding those instructions are half of the work carried out! As well those young people will be instructed at writing neatly since when they are young children.  Regarding researching about a topic when they’re older, they will be taught to research on the Internet, for instance.  They will learn how to select the appropriate information and discard unimportant stuff. For that they’ll be trained at viewing websites. And better if they carry out that research inside the classroom, ...

We teachers have to take care of the school learning community. For that reason we will treat our students tactfully and with consideration.  They may be young people that are learning, and that learning should be in a rather relaxed way. That is not against discipline. I mean, we can treat our students as intelligent persons and at the same time we are not naïve concerning discipline.  Furthermore, if we have gotten a discipline atmosphere, we can treat our students as those intelligent persons.  As well we teachers should avoid a rather harsh atmosphere: discipline is absolutely compatible with treating those people as civilized ones. Even we’ll try to treat our students as somehow friends: all of us are learning and constitute a learning community.  Even we should treat our students with exquisiteness and politeness. We’ll greet them good morning and so on.  And when reprimanding someone aside we’ll appeal to his responsibility, and w...

I have gotten a costume and habit: I usually thank my adult students at the end of each lesson. I do. I appreciate their contributions, their attention and their effort. They’re great, demanding though.  I owe them classes turn out fine.  As well positive motivation makes them even better learners. I try and reckon what they do well, which is a lot. Since our teaching method is communicative – teaching English as a second language – I usually focus on class communication, rather than grammar accuracy. Sometimes, even often, grammar is also important, anyways.  I insist on purpose: communication, communication, communication is the big thing in our lessons, and they – my students – are so communicative often. Good night, fellow readers.  We can praise our students, but not too much either. / Photo from: Colorín Colorado.

Teaching a second language is something great, tiring though. And demanding! Well any school subject is so.  Teaching a language is not merely giving language facts but helping the students get a nice communicative skill in English or the tongue that is being taught. Communication is the first goal, though the amelioration of the people involved is more important.  Communication among human persons. So in the classroom communication should be fostered. And so also the teacher and the students have to speak quite a lot.  And the teacher should talk in a bit higher level than the ones his or her students have, okay?  Communication and also language functions: apologizing, offering something, stating some asseveration, suggesting, booking a reservation and a long, a rather long series of them.  And the students will be exposed to English for also quite much. The classroom will be kind of a piece of a country where English is spoken. The mor...

The teacher should teach and work with his students, okay. I like for him to educate free students.  He will teach with their freedom. Because his students are human persons, and subsequently free persons. And persons with responsibility, with some subsequent responsibility.  Freedom and liberty will take the students to become able to choose what is good for them.  I am free and very free when I can choose what is good for me, and also good for my classmates, and the whole community, and even the whole world. I mean, when I do something which is good I can be helping and assisting all the world.  If I, as a student, for example work hard, that work influences on my peers and ultimately and in some way on all the world. I make humankind better.  Something practical? I will teach taking into account they are intelligent beings. I will treat them in an elegant way, respecting them. I will smile when I set some task to them, my students. I ...

The teacher has to be attentive to his students. And also attentive if his students feel like working.  He should take these students toward working nice. And that is dependent on the teacher’s attitude.  If he’s eager to work and teach well, more likely his students will work and learn better.  The first thing a teacher must do is trying to engage his students into working and learning. Thus he should implement activities that engage his students and ones that are meaningful to them.  For example when the teacher gives examples of sentences with a language pattern the students are learning he should say or write sentences that have to do with students. And that in a tactful way: never humiliating his students.  As well he should give clean sentences and not ones that by far could be obscene at all. Beauty is educative. I’m going back to what I said at the beginning of this post: the teacher should be attentive to his students’ mood....

I’ve just arrived from going swimming, at an indoor pool.  And I was thinking that the teacher also needs resting and relaxing, obviously.  I’ve recently told you that all we do influences on our dear students. However, we teachers must have our private life. Well, also that private life influences on our students. In some way or other.  I mean, we can give other people what we have, not what we don’t. If we in our private life try to be nice with our family, that will influence on the students.  Even more and moreover, if we try to actually help and build our family and not merely being nice, all that’ll influence on those students of ours. We give what we have, let’s remember. Have a nice week, readers. / Photo from: rain-golf SOCIAL Golfer

At early afternoon I corrected and revised some questionnaires my students filled out this morning: They’re so great too.  For example they said the activities they liked most and the ones they might dislike. By doing that I try to get some straight feedback from them. They’re thoughtful people.  I remind you that my students now are adults. I can assure you that most often I enjoy to teach them. As well they’re so cooperative. They try hard to learn English.  Moreover they attend some conversation sessions with young American volunteers so as to practice speaking in that language: from Iowa, Virginia and somewhere else... The volunteers are Sarah, Jacob and Destiny: they give them conversation for free.  We have native teachers because it’s easier for my students to understand me than those American people: we always understand a countryman better than a person whose language is the target one. Again, have a nice weekend. I can assure you also t...

Pheeew! I’ve written so much so far.  I like teaching. It’s a bit tough though, sometimes. I like to treat my students. I like to teach, as I said. Teaching lessons is a very human and humane job.  Also because it doesn’t have a limited schedule: you can be treating your students also out of the classroom.  And we teachers have so big some responsibility: we’re forming and educating our students! Whatever we do or whatever we don’t influences on our dear students.  Even what we do out of the school also influences on them, our dear students.  As well teaching is very vocational. It’s like a military job: you need to have a big professional vocation or trend, right?  We influence on our students also because we are like on the top of a plinth: we all the time are watched by them… Today I overheard a student of mine saying under her breadth to another student that I was rather serious… It’s better so: otherwise my lessons could be...

I’ve recently told you about learning strategies. Okay then, at individual tutoring sessions with each student he or she can also be helped and so in a sound way.  It is so because in that way he or she can be asked about how they study and learn. The tutor should be nice at treating each kid: the tutor will treat each student tactfully and not in kind of an arrogant way and as if invading his or her interior person.  I’ve seen nice tutoring sessions at the schools where I taught both at the beginning of my career as a teacher and at a second stage of that career too: each boy had a tutor who also became kind of a friend or nearly.  Some of the tutors were ones who knew how to become friendly and close to those kids. Even some of the boys used to talk with their tutors more than with their parents. And those tutors tried to help those parents become closer to their children. The same happened at the girls' twin school. Nice experiences they were indee...

I’ve already told you that we can consciously learn a language or even we can acquire it subconsciously too.  When producing language – when communicating in that language – we are using both learned and acquired language, tentatively.  For acquiring the language the student has to be exposed to massive language. So they have to massively listen to that tongue. And also they can be exposed to massive written language.  From my own experience I can affirm that from read language, from books, from massive reading, I get language that I use when speaking in English to my students for example.  I use idioms, expressions and phrases I’ve read. English is our common target language. Both they and I are learning and acquiring English.  I try to read novels and nonfiction often: it would be nice I could read that language every single day.  When reading we’re sowing the seed, and when producing that tongue we are harvesting and collecti...

Teaching obviously is pretty important for the class of students. And the teacher has to take care of his teaching. The more, the better.  Yet he should also take care of his students’ learning, which is the main goal of his lessons.  So he should foster all that helps his students learn in the classroom. He as well should care he’s promoting autonomous learners: learners that wish to learn and set to the task of learning themselves. The more his students wish to learn, the better.  At the same time he will always respect his students’ freedom to learn: if they wish to learn, they’ll actually learn. Because of all that the teacher should devote some classes to learning strategies: self-assessment, reading for the gist, memorizing, critic learning, making summaries, relating new knowledge with something previously learned, how to revise, self-testing of the personal attitude to learning, etcetera.  I’ve already written quite much about learning st...

We teachers of a second or foreign language have to foster communication in the classroom. Also for the students to be able to have communication outside the classroom.  So we shouldn’t confine our teaching to language facts, but we’ll foster that communication.  Lessons should be in that language, at a bit higher level than the student average one. And as well that big exposure to the language will make the students learn and also acquire that tongue.  But remember: they should be exposed to the language massively. Also adults are capable of acquiring the language, not only infants.  And let’s remember that we’re making something big: fostering communication among people, which is something also big: we’re making something very human.  Since the students’ levels may be varied, we could try several levels in the classroom, or otherwise try to make different groups, at least two: one that is more basic and one that is more advanced. ...

I'll be posting soon again. My students are giving me chances to post further. Plus I have some ideas that could be nice to share with you. See you soon! I even have a nice corpus of issues that might hopefully be useful for you all. We keep in touch with one another. This morning I encountered my students again and they were rather eager to participate. Nice people them! / Photo from: fearofflying

Lessons or classes in a classroom should be student-centered. The students are the protagonists in the classroom, but also the teacher.  If we want to have student-centered lessons or classes we also need teacher-centered lessons or classes.  The teacher helps and makes the students learn. The students need a lot of input and intake from their teacher.  For example in second or foreign language classes the students need a lot of input and intake from their teacher. The teacher often is the model. And he will have his students participate a lot. He will have his students speak a lot of time, both by small contributions and with long ones as well.  If we want the students would say many things in English – the target language –, firstly they need a lot of speaking by the teacher. When listening to their teacher they’re learning and also acquiring the tongue. They need a lot of English heard and listened to, before they produce English. But anyway d...

Something elegant from the teacher could be giving his students what took a big effort to seek and learn.  I knew a teacher that used to teach his students what he had sought for long and he did so in an easy way, for them to learn it clearly and easily.  That was nice and elegant solidarity and service toward his students.  I said some posts ago that both the teacher and the students should be attentive to seek and find truth. Truth concerning little things about the school subject and more profoundly to seek truth concerning human persons, which is something even philosophic. Happiness is at stake...  As well some more elegant attitude by the teacher is clarifying and rectifying when he realizes he was wrong about some point he had taught. He and his students seek truth, as I said.  So giving the students what he learned with great effort and clarifying in the classroom if he taught something wrong. Better anyway if the teacher does no...

Second or foreign language teaching is one of the school subjects where we teachers can find most varied levels within a classroom.  Coming to the root of the point every student has his or her own different level of English or the taught language.  Although we may try to place each student at his or her specific and precise level and class, in any class we teach we will likely find varied and various levels.  And the high-performing students ought not to get bored. And the low-performing students ought not to be left behind. And every student has his or her own experience at learning and acquiring the language. What to do?  The answer is not simple. Something I do is trying to combine different leveled activities in the classroom but the solution is not accurate and definitive sometimes. Well, we can try that, trying also to get feedback from the students: Are they understanding me their teacher?  As well something else we can do is get...

Today I taught my second lesson to one of my classes of adults. It was okay. And they worked hard and pleasantly too. I teach English.  And today I got to have some nice discussion about some point like global warming. Today they said more things along the discussion. Because last week I got little speaking from them.  Now they feel more comfortable.  All these things could also help you with your classes with kids as well.  I prompted them by showing them pictures of ice stars from a magazine. There were quite some pictures of those ice and snow stars, taken with microscopes.  Today they said more things. My new students also are getting my teaching way, thus they participated something more. I guess I could have nice lessons with those people.  At the beginning of this post I said that I had taught English lessons. More properly I don’t teach English lessons. It’s not like giving a talk or a speech: precisely they are speaking...

Quite many years ago, one day while talking with a school subdirector he told me something like it was my students’ business to keep silent and attentive in the classroom.  I was surprised because I thought it was my business to get them quiet and listening. And he was right. It was my students the ones that had to wish to learn.  We have to educate our students in freedom and at the same time in responsibility. They are human beings and consequently free and responsible.  The teacher has to be loyal, sincere and honest with his students, and these latter ones loyal, sincere and honest toward their teacher.  Something practical and pragmatic? Both at tutoring sessions and in the classroom the teacher can try and make his students responsible by transmitting and passing on to them the like for a well outfitted work.  He can explain how to work on some activities nice. He will be direct at explaining to them about freedom and responsibilit...

If possible – and often it may be possible – we teachers should enjoy teaching. It depends also on the teacher’s interior richness, on the values he has cultivated.  He should value and weigh up each moment of the lesson, in terms of didactics.  For example he will say to his students that right then they’re achieving such or such teaching goal. In my case sometimes I tell my students that right then we’re communicating in English in the classroom! We may have been speaking in English for how long, for instance a quarter of an hour. And we can proceed in English. In that way they get motivated and also then they may enjoy the lesson. We transmit and pass on the like for teaching/ learning to our students.  As well in that way we connect with our students, and we show the teacher also is human. Thus the teacher can get the best from him or herself, and alike from each student. The point is letting our students know that things are turning out well....

We are not supermen nor superwomen, I told you some posts ago. I can encounter and find problems along the way, on a regular teaching day. What is more, we will find that trouble, as you also well know.  We should focus mainly on present, which is the only thing we have at hand. And about the future and the past: I should be concerned about them in a peaceful way.  Future is in God’s hands. And if I try to be a responsible teacher now, I’m already paving my future teaching road.  And about the past: it also is in God’s hands and what I can do now is to compensate and repair what I did wrong, but in a peaceful mood, please. Present is the only thing I can focus on – really. That does not mean I will be an irresponsible teacher in the future. As well I have to plan and program that future, but each day has its own concerns.  I will try my best. And I’ll also try to educate my students, whichever their age is, at carrying out good work and not s...

It seems sound we teachers should have affection to our students. Some prudent affection. Also because we teachers seek educating them as thorough persons, capable to change the world into something better.  We also seek truth. And we teach our students to seek truth. We teach truth, and we must do so. And when our students are studying, they are seeking truth.  It is true that Mercury is the closest planet to our dear sun. And we teach so. Or that 2+2 make 4. Also we seek deeper and more profound truths upon our human nature: for example all men and women are equal. We are human beings. We are children of God.  We help families educate their children.  As well we love our students with benevolence love, as said on other posts. In that way we may teach, we may also here seek what is good for them as human persons.  And we teachers may like to treat our students live in the classroom. And not only there, also at every place in the school:...

On last post I told you about helping high-achiever students. Okay then, now I’m saying something about helping low-achievers. I’ve found them. For example kids that had somehow serious problems at studying, learning, paying attention… plus their self-esteem might be low, so low.  Well, all the teacher team tried to help those few students. Also through tutoring sessions plus interviewing their parents. With frequency, more or less.  Well, something I used to do was to set for them goals that tentatively they could reach. These kids needed attention and affection.  As well their future could be manual jobs, not intellectual ones. Not for that reason are those professions negative or low level ones. Those jobs also are necessary in our society: aluminum carpenters or joiners for example.  The ideal thing would have been they could do the same activities as their classmates, but, you know, in no way could they reach those goals, like the ones their...