Posts

3693. Want to Relax in Summer and Not Know How to? Some Tips

  You may be at the summer break now, if you’re a teacher in the north hemisphere. Anyway, I hope this post can help any teacher wherever you may be in our dear planet.  So you may have had a hectic and busy school year, as any teacher has. And you now seek to rest, relax, and rejuvenate yourself, right? Also because you want to start again in fall to give yourself to your work as a teacher. I think you have good ideas thus.  Even more, when the new school year begins, you wish to give yourself to your dear students, as I’ve seen in many many teachers: in class a good teacher gives him or herself to their students so that these ones may really learn and work and study. And they end up tired after the class - the teacher I mean.  As well what about considering to also give yourself – in that way – to their families? Even also to your colleagues the other teachers? The good teacher can be like a light beacon who lights up the place where he or she works, also the perso...
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3692. On Creating a Nice Atmosphere in Class where Everybody Can Work

  Do our kids need limits? Our kids at school I mean? Yep, they do. They cannot do all that pleases them and all that they may think of. If you’re a teacher, you may understand what I mean.  Also all of you readers have passed through school, at any grade it may be.  But they are limits that protect those school kids. They are there for their sake. For them to learn. And for them ultimately to be happy. Who doesn’t remember and recall some good teachers we have had, when we were young, or at any other crucial age? All of us can remember that teacher who influenced great when I was a schoolboy or a schoolgirl. They become beacons for our lives. Maybe we are not aware how much they intervened in our lives. Or perhaps we are.  Furthermore, any teacher of kids needs to set some rules for his or her young students, don’t they? To begin with, some days ago a rural doctor who is a friend of mine and he knows some of the high school teachers of those small towns where he wor...
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3691. My Students Make Mistakes ... Well Then, They Are Learning!

  From here we thank Larry Whitted for his help in class these days. He’s a native speaker – from the USA and based here in Spain – and it seems he’s helping out great in class with my adult students. As well these ones are talking with him so they can practice their English, also out of class.  By the way today I wanted to write about the learning process, of anything you may be learning, math, a second language, history, chemistry … . Okay, when you are learning – and I’m also learning English – you have to take some risks. For example when learning to walk when you’re a toddler, well you’ve got to put one foot in the air to keep walking, and then when that foot is set then another foot in the air. And we’ll have progress.  Also when learning to ride a bicycle, you may fall and fall later on again, but in the end you are able to cycle too.  When learning English, you kind of have to take some risk to venture an expression you think you’ve learned. It’s nice, and we...
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3690. Motivation in Class You Said?

 I've written a lot on motivation in the classroom. Ok, but you may find something I'm lately considering about motivation, and which you can find on my new blog, whose link is on the left hand of this very blog. That new post is #4. I hope you enjoy it. Motivation is ok but since we wish the best to our kids, you might find out other perspectives about motivation and love. Have a nice day. And you may leave your comments. Oh, the label where you can find my other blog is called Other experiences. 
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3689. Initiatives Driven by the Teacher or by his Students?

  So the teacher has some authority in the classroom – even some moral authority, gotten through several factors, from dressing up correctly to his or her carrying out their profession in a right way.  Anyway, also this teacher must face the fact that also his or her students ought to have and drive some initiatives about their learning: no decision-making by them, no learning, or perhaps poor learning.  Something I implement with my adult students is I encourage them to work on the textbook on their own. We have two lessons a week, which, you know, is okay, but if they really wish to learn … then they ought to work on the coursebook by themselves, and actually they do so, and I note their progress over the years.  As well I tell them they’re going to learn a lot by reading books by themselves, the ones they choose.  Also if your students are kids, well, they also could work on the textbook – definitely it may be something good learners do. You can encourage the...
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3688. The Teacher as a Learning Facilitator

  Who is the protagonist in class, in the classroom I mean? Obviously both the teacher and the students.  That person is developing his or her job, hopefully with professionalism. And their students … also are developing their job or profession now, for their job is learning and studying, if they are kids.  Today I wanted to pinpoint that in a second or foreign language lesson the teacher must speak a lot, thus showing a model to his or her students.  I’ve taken that idea from Spanish teacher, pedagogue, and philosopher Gregorio Luri, although anyone could think that way too: the teacher has to show – and teach – the language to those kids, or adults. Only in that way will he be able to attain his students will learn and acquire English, or French, or any other language.  As well that teacher should show a lot of written language to those learners – and as you may know, I’ve insisted on the fact that you may learn and acquire English through massive and intensiv...
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3687. The Teacher Is Essential in Class

  I teach English to adults, as you know. And I would like to consider each lesson as a study session with my dear students. It’s an occasion for us to learn English. To learn new words, phrases, some syntax. Plus an occasion to have nice discussions about the topics from the textbook and from life itself.  If I consider that lesson as a study session, I will not get a bit nervous for acting in public, because on the other hand I like studying and learning English.  Even more, in that way I can have sort of a contemplative attitude in class, and that will positively influence on my students and my students’ learning and acquiring that target language. It will.  Something essential – you know – is planning that lesson, and there will be activities we carry out on the spot, and others that they, the students, will carry out on their own, working silently, and thus learning and acquiring English in some likely peaceful and quiet atmosphere: this latter is also essential...
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