3451. Do Our Students Feel Free in the Classroom?


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 responsibility. In a peaceful and elegant way. Seriously and perhaps with some smiling. 

He can explain that he’s there with them fulfilling his job and he and the society expect some nice work from them. Also, of course, their parents and the rest of their families. 

He can give them some examples of freedom and responsibility. And he will go in the first place: he should set an example. 

He can explain how they should take care of their own and the school material, furniture, books, iPads and computers. 

They also should take care of the bathrooms, because there’re some people who keep them clean and neat. 

At the beginning and at the end of the lesson they can arrange their desks into neat lines and rows. And pick up pieces of paper from the floor. And airing and ventilating the classroom. And many other little things you surely can think of. Have a nice weekend. 

/ Photo from: 1942 car of the future plus plane The Saturday Evening Post. Beauty is educative. The picture shows what people might think in 1942 it was beautiful for the future… 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3658. Language Facts or Communication in Class?

  I teach English to adults. It’s so great … and demanding.  Adults have some characteristic way of learning the language. For example they tend to focus on specific grammar patterns and ways of saying things in the target language. Well, it’s something I also do when learning that language myself. And it is something I cannot change. It is something we can take advantage from, anyway.  Even in that way they can learn quite a lot. You know, it doesn’t matter they would ask me questions in class that show they are focusing on grammar. It’s ok. It’s ok ever if also we as teachers facilitate there is plenty of communication in English in class.  I mean, do not confine as a teacher to teach grammar and language facts, but provide a lot of communication in class.  When some newcomer arrives at one of those groups of mine – and I’m thinking of one specific group – that new student says kind of, Oh I can see my classmates have a lot of fluency while in my case … Why do the other students have
Read more

758. Irregular verbs now and then

Image
One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “English irregular verbs are an interesting grammar point Spanish students have to study year after year, increasing the list of them each academic year. Quite many more verbs of this type existed in Old English, before the 11th century, perhaps most of the English verbs then. In other words, the way each verb took the form of past simple and past participle was more complicate than the simple – ed ending. With centuries passing, fewer and fewer verbs remained as such ‘irregular’ verbs, in fact those verbs native speakers used very often. Because of that those verbs remained being ‘irregular’, while most of the English verbs, roughly speaking, were taking on the regular form of – ed for past simple and past participle. This can be due just to linguistic evolutions that actually occur in every language, with the language common people speak, year after year. Beside the fact that many words, so verbs too, were entering in the E
Read more

2064. Connecting people from different countries

Image
Something we teachers of English or other languages have to bear in mind when teaching adults is that the students should learn and practice communication, and we shouldn’t confine our classes to give them facts of the languages.  Also in kids’ case.  The point isn’t for them to know information about the language, yet to learn how to communicate in that language.  Thus we could plan our classes with that aim.  I state all this because we could dedicate a long time to teach facts, information, something nearly dead, say.  In this way, besides we contribute to connect people from so varied countries. It’s something brilliant, isn’t it? / Photo from: people-happy-cheering bachflowerssingapore wordpress com
Read more

2445. We Had Nice Teachers To Remember!

Image
Families have a nice and indispensable role in kids’ education.  School just helps, among other things to win knowledge and PRACTICE of technical school subjects: math, sport, grammar and spelling… Also school educates people, more specifically: teachers, we teachers help parents and families in their kids’ education.  At school you win some values, like solidarity, environmental friendship, knowledge and practice..., as I said. And all what teachers, we teachers can provide, because of our own education, values and virtues: we set examples, either positive or we can show flaws in our behavior.  I’ll give you one example. At my primary education we had a teacher that taught us how to read the Bible, the New Testament more specifically.  We had nice teachers, and they taught us how to learn… and to love their subjects. I can state that - about most of my teachers. / Photo from: teacher1 www geledes org br
Read more

3657. How to Develop a Lesson that Could Be Efficient

  You may be a teacher, one of a second or foreign language. Well, that’s is a marvelous enterprise.  Now I wanted to draw some lines about what a good lesson could be, according to my experience plus others’ one.  Thus we can start the class with a warmer or warm-up activity. I ask my dear students about today’s date, and about the weather. Then, within that warmer, we practice saying sentences with such or such grammar structure, one we are practicing lately. Or they answer some questions by me. Or by them, to each other.  Then we work on the homework set on the previous lesson. Every day I set some homework, at the end of the class. And usually they’ll have to review what done in class – me giving examples of what and how they may revise at home.  And next we may work either on photocopies I hand out, or on the textbook we are working on.  Much weight should be given in class to speaking in the target language.  I plan each and every lesson, on a notebook for that purpose, even some
Read more