Experiences of a teacher of English

  The pandemic has brought us something good, well, more than one good thing. It is that since I had to teach online last school year, I also started to send emails to my students. This current school year we have returned to face-to-face lessons… and I keep sending emails to my grownup students, and it works!  For they feel their lessons and all the English course more of their own, and I can tell you that my students work and learn better. Well their lessons are just that, THEIR lessons. And they participate a great deal on those classes.  On those frequent emails I also push them upward at their feelings that they are actually learning English. I’ve written things like, You are being great at the lessons . You know, this is positive motivation. As well I let them know that I like to work with them.  Alike I attain to reinforce things I tell them on the classes themselves, by sending them those emails.  Something else for today. I think that we language teache...

  On my last post I said that in a foreign or second language classroom our dear students should participate by speaking for quite long periods. It’s not the same to say one sentence than speaking for 5 or 10 minutes. And if we want for them to learn and acquire that language, well then they should give long oral presentations. And lose their natural fear to speak for those allotted minutes.  Expert teacher trainer Mary Jane Amaya taught me how our students can prepare that very oral presentation.  Basically and trying to remember I can describe the preparation process as follows.  First the student has got to choose his or her topic. They can do it by brainstorming possible topics and then choose their favorite one. Of course you can teach all that nice process by carrying it out in the classroom with the class of students as a whole.  So after that brainstorm they can vote or anyway select one topic.  Then they can again brainstorm possible points about t...