Experiences of a teacher of English

Some time I somehow enjoy in the classroom is when my adult students are reading and working on the worksheets I hand them out. The new school year is coming on and now it is a nice time to think of the good things teaching has.  Sometimes, as I said, my students dedicate some time to revising those worksheets I make myself.  While they’re reading I can contemplate them working and that’s nice too.  They need that amount of time to focus and concentrate on those texts in English. It’s then when also they’re learning and acquiring that language. They often use their smartphones to look up words they don’t understand, on an online dictionary.  They learn a lot mainly because they’re good learners. It’s also then when they’re a bit more of autonomous learners.  As well that’s when I have some recess at my teaching them. And that’s important. Furthermore because I need some break within classes.  Of course I keep at their disposal in ca...

Learning and acquiring a foreign language, like English in my case and my students’, demands learning and acquiring a vast vocabulary. This is clear enough, right?  Something I implement when daily learning and acquiring English is reading books in that language. I consciously try and learn new words from those readings. Every single day.  And when writing for example these blog posts some words come up to mind and then I use them, while writing. For example ways of saying things in English, or single words, or phrases. Or whatever.  I am sure also I gain and acquire words I’m not aware I’m acquiring. Also those words may come up when writing. More often when I read more.  Currently I’m reading a book about teaching English by great Jeremy Harmer plus a book on Apollo missions to the moon in the sixties and early seventies, when I was born and a young infant. Great.  Sometimes I read as if I were writing those texts, word by word, and in tha...

When I was at the English summer camp two weeks ago I thought of writing on class management and discipline when I had the chance to. And here I am.  For example there was a teacher whom the kids of the camp respected a lot. Well, you know, he was nearly seven feet tall, but that was not all. He respected the kids. He used to get concerned about his students’ work and learning English. He tried hard to assist them at their everyday work.  Also he would not raise his voice to address a disrupting kid. Not at all. It’s also true that those kids this year were respectful, but I mean he knew how to manage the class of students. Yes indeed.  Alike then I thought and recalled about a teacher whom also her students had a lot of respect to. She taught chemistry.  She was so concerned about her students that they tried to also respect her. Even they did not want to fail at exams to avoid provoking any annoyance to her. They knew she loved her students with be...

Most of us teachers in earth north hemisphere may be on vacations. And we know that this break may be somewhat short. So we have to make good use of time.  Do we know how to rest? Do we know how to make good use of this resting and relaxing time?  I do know that we teachers on holidays may have other things to do at this time. But we must learn how to rest. I would say that this recess is for gathering forces and strength for the coming school year 2019-2020.  It’s the time for rejuvenation and recovering our lost forces and strength. It’s a time to perhaps strolling around the countryside or along a solitary beach and think of things that can boost our ordinary work and laboring.  It’s a time to think of our students in a new and fresh way: we’re educating the people that are our society’s near future.  We deal with persons and do not dedicate our nice time to manufacture screws: we work with persons, human beings. And those our dear studen...