Experiences of a teacher of English

  Many people want to learn a language. They need it. We need it. My students and I want to learn English.  A school year is over or nearly. One more year. It’s beautiful. And my students are great. They have struggled also this year. They have attended the online lessons. They have participated a lot on the lessons.  They for example wanted to explain things at the lessons. And they used the language they had, the language they mastered. I have noticed that the students who had strived more, they had more language to participate. They are the ones who for example have read more.  For reading is a language-learning booster. Reading provides you with the language you need when you want to explain something. Reading provides you with the grammar, lexis and ways of saying things. I have noted it this school year which is already over.  Also the learners that succeed at learning English are the ones who really and actually wish to learn, for they use the means to le...

  I am finishing the current school year. Or I should say, WE are finishing our school year, my dear students plus me. They’ve been great also this school year, and I’ve noticed their progress in the target language. They’ve paid off. Yes, they have.  They are adults.  Recently I have again understood that successful learners are the ones who really wish to learn and those really in need of learning that target language, like migrants that have to earn their lives in a foreign country.  In an English classroom there must be a real immersion in that tongue: communication is sustained and held in English, like the classroom were a piece of a foreign country.  I teach English as a foreign language, or perhaps I should say as a second language, for English is permeating people’s learning and studies, above all amongst young people. Indeed.  This finishing school year I have offered my dear students unabridged articles from the Web plus emails in English to info...

  I am a teacher. You already know it. I teach English to grownups. And I actually wish they would learn the language. And acquire it. I do.  Yet all my effort would be fruitless unless they my students also wish to learn and acquire it.  For that reason I give them articles from the Web, two of them about learning English. Next lesson I will insist on the following premises.  Who is the student, the learner who REALLY learns the tongue? The one who REALLY wishes to learn. Crystal clear, you know? I’ve seen it this school year. In my students, in some more than in some others. Anyway all of them have improved.  The learner that really learns is the autonomous one. That person pays off. That person will for sure apply all his strength to learning.  If I dedicate my best forces to teaching but somebody would not really wish to learn, my job would be useless or close to that. Well, you know, they my students want to learn. And they attend the lessons. And when...

  Today I would tell you more about reading for learning English or any other language, and also about communication in the (remote) classroom.  Reading books and readers is a language-learning booster. Yes, sir, it is. I do it myself, and I’ve done so for many years. It gives you language: grammar, ways of saying things in the target language, lexis.  While I’m reading a science-fiction novel,  I read, yes, but also I study the language. I kind of devour the words, the phrases, the sentences, and much is retained in my memory.  And while speaking at the English lesson with my students, or while writing a new post for this blog, some expressions come up to that moment and I utilize them.  I study the language, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy reading, I do, yep.  Plus sometimes after reading a couple pages I go back and randomly revise some sentences or phrases or words, which thus get stuck in mind too. And afterward I can retrieve them when neces...