Experiences of a teacher of English

  So we have – continuing what said on the previous post – that we can learn a foreign or second language, but also we can acquire it. Subconsciously. Similar to what little children do.  And we language learners have to receive a comprehensible input, to acquire the language. Thus we will be exposed to that input, which should be a bit above my actual level, thus we can proceed and advance in that language learning.  All this entails practical points for the classroom.  Remember all that was already said by Stephen Krashen from the seventies and eighties of last century. A great fellow this expert I guess.  He also said that you can learn & acquire the target tongue by reading books, and this is good news – I do like reading books and articles.  He puts that fiction books, like novels, help you a great deal in those learning & acquiring: those books bring everyday lexis and sayings and kinds of expressions. And even it seems better if you select th...

  We teachers have to learn from the experts. If we want to teach our dear students fine.  So Stephen Krashen – an expert on learning a second or foreign language himself – put his first theories in the seventies and eighties of last century. According to them we know that we can learn a language, ok, but – and it’s good news – as well we can acquire that dear language. Subconsciously.  We can acquire a language without being aware we are learning that tongue.  For that we have to receive comprehensible input in that language, for example by reading a fiction book we have selected ourselves, not necessarily an assigned class read.  Of course also we can learn that language: it’s when we study its grammar and such in an aware way we are learning.  And – if you let me say so – to produce that language (to speak and write) we can hand those both learned and acquired languages, which is what I note I do when I speak or write in English – which is not my mother ...

  I have found apparently very plausible postulates from two education aces which seem – only seem – incompatible.  They both are Spanish education aces, Gerardo Castillo and Gregorio Luri. And they do know a lot on educating our students, both in theory and in practice.  Castillo puts, in a book about fifteen world geniuses, that schools, or better said, teachers should foster and promote their students’ creativity. Namely Isaac Newton, Thomas A. Edison, Antonio Gaudí, John Ford, Joan Miró, Alfred Hitchcock, Steve Jobs, well, they were considered as bad students (!).  Gerardo Castillo says that it was like schools systems were possibly boring for those geniuses when they were schoolboys.  Thus that education expert says that creativity should be fostered at school, or some creativity should be thus fostered at schools, together with regular set education. Anyway, let’s note that creativity stroke.  In the meanwhile another education expert – I believe they...