Experiences of a teacher of English

Many people need to learn a foreign or second language. For their work for example or perhaps they want to get a new job. And it’s our mission as teachers to facilitate that. Now amid these special circumstances of the Covid-19 crisis.  Lately I've told you my readers that reading books however the format may be a stupendous way of learning and acquiring that tongue.  Not only is reading good for learning: we have to practice listening, speaking and writing. But reading is so great and it comes to the same plate: it actually helps a lot, also as Stephen Krashen puts it.  I do it and I have done it over many years and I can assure you that you learn a great deal.  I’m reading a Jules Verne’s novel, in a complete and unabridged version. It’s okay. Each learner has his or her own unique way of affording learning a language, even the same person changes and shifts ways of learning along his or her career as a learner.  I read a couple of pages and then go back to fo...

We are still at the beginning of a new academic year. And it’s good we teachers and our students alike be enthused. Even now that we are going through this Covid-19 crisis.  Anyway, what I’m saying on this post may affect any time around the school year.  I teach English. Currently to adults. And I do know that students can learn the language, but also they can acquire it, i.e. learn it subconsciously.  We learners of English also acquire the tongue if exposed to it at a level we can understand, better if the texts are a bit above our level. This is, finely tuned at a level which is a bit above us.  The scholar who explained all this theory is well-known, Stephen D. Krashen (Chicago, 1941).  He also said that if the learner reads books freely, he will acquire a lot of the target language.  It’s also my experience: I’ve learned a lot of English through reading, and keep on doing so.  Presently I read Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon . In an unabrid...

We teachers must think some points out, even more if we are starting a new school year.  I was thinking that for learning a second or foreign language with success, we learners have to find our own unique pathway to success. And each learner has his or her own way: what works for me may not work for you.  And we teachers in the classroom or online have to facilitate to find that unique way to success in learning that language.  Henry Douglas Brown is one of the authors that say this same thing: find your own way of learning!  We teachers have to plan lessons but we should think of helping our dear students find their own learning ways.  Each learner learns in a more or less different way.  On individual tutoring sessions we can assist our students in this way. Those tutorials are crucial. Because we may be making those students think of their learning processes.  When I taught kids we had those tutorials. Better if male teachers talk with male students...

It is convenient for us teachers to have some professional enthusiasm, even more at the beginning of a new academic year. Some, or a lot of enthusiasm.  Some of us teachers teach a foreign or second language, English in my case. Is it appropriate to teach grammar to our students? Or otherwise the good thing is communication in the classroom and grammar should be inferred by those people in and out of the classroom?  Communication is the goal of English language lessons, but grammar is necessary too. Grammar is like the language skeleton. We communicate with other people by using grammar patterns.  Well, sometimes it can be convenient for the students to infer the grammar themselves, from communication.  Yet grammar as presented to the learners can facilitate that communication, and facilitate things.  Sometimes the teacher can focus on some grammar problems the students frequently encounter.  For example the teacher can present grammar patterns the students...