Experiences of a teacher of English

We teachers wish to have peaceful classes with our students, right? At the same time we may wish for them, for our students to participate actively in those classes, also right?  Something else to bear in mind: We have to love our students with benevolence love.  Not because if we love them we will have no problems, but we have to love them in a generous way. That is, benevolence love is to seek what is good for them. We love them, we have to love them in a generous way, as I said.  We in principle should seek what their parents want for them. Okay then, otherwise if we do not love them, we may be failing at something essential, and besides and moreover we may have discipline and behavior problems. On the contrary, if we seek what is good for them, we will be interested in seriously helping them. Each and every one of them.  A teacher who attends his classes but at the same time he just wants to fulfill his strict obligation, well then, he may start ...

We teachers – we have a great profession! – have to correct our students, for we want to educate them for life, don’t we? Nevertheless also we have to reckon their work and let them know about what they do well and correctly! That counts for much and we will be boosting their learning!  I can assure you it’s so, it’s like that, I’ve seen it in my students and in other groups of people. Positive motivation, positive intrinsic motivation can multiply what they do correctly.  Furthermore that is a way of making them repeat what they do well. And they, our students, will do better what they already do well. And we’ll cover their error and mistake gaps.  It’s not flattering, silly adulating, it’s kind of recognizing and noticing what they do well.  We will not be all the time flattering our students. However, when they are doing something right, we can just say some “Yes…” so as to pull our students toward doing things correctly, and toward letting them c...

Teaching is… great, once again. And watching and observing how our students are progressing or not very much… - so far - is also great.  We have to plan our lessons with our students in mind. But I can also see and perceive that I have to keep on improving my teaching. Once and over again and again. No problem. If you've been teaching for some quite many years, you can discover and find out what your students are in need of.   Well, my students try to do their best. I teach English as a second language. This morning my students were saying what some words meant, from a worksheet with sentences and one longer text. That was one of the activities we were carrying out.  That was good practice and I intended for them to notice and reckon that: that was good practice.  For next class I will also say what those words mean, and thus I can mold the exercise for my students to have some more examples to imitate or to build up their definitions upon, ...

Teaching is great, as I’ve already said. Several times. I’ve said it several times. Ok.  When teaching a second or foreign language we teachers have to create the atmosphere of communication in the classroom, even at the school corridors and halls. Communication in the school, that’s it. And communication in that language we’re teaching.  But also we have to give our dear students language facts: vocabulary, grammar points, curious and interesting points about the language.  And we should carry out activities where our students have to interact with us their teachers and with other learners as well.  This morning I observed some of my students dialoguing in English at the beginning of the class. English is our common target language. They were talking about their yesterday’s experience at speaking with some American volunteers, young ones, who offer conversation sessions for my learners. These latter ones are adults, mostly retired people.  ...