#4. The secret of success.


These are my experiences - I'm not H D Brown, or Jane Arnold, or Antonio Bueno, just a simple teacher. Who is the person who achieves the goal of learning/acquiring a language? The person who really, really, really wants to. I'll tell you more, little by little. That person finds the way to learn, he or she is eager to learn. He, she will hit the jackpot. Bear me. However, in order to wish something, you need to know it before: nobody loves what she does not know, as Aristotle puts it. I do know some people who are improving more and more. / Pic from dmh.dc.gov

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3715. Do You Really Listen to Your Students?

  Some people think kids at schools should have tutors, not only teachers. Tutors with whom the kids could talk, aside the classroom, at individual tutorial sessions.  I used to have this situation when I taught kids, before I began to teach English to adults, some sixteen years ago – I’ve been teaching English since 1993. I think that that thing of having a tutor is something good. Tutors chosen by the kids’ parents, though those ones may propose their opinion about who could their tutor be.  And at these tutorial sessions the kids and their tutors may hold nice and friendly conversations. I’ve seen it, and it works, it does. Usually boys had male teachers as tutors, while also the other way round.  For those sessions there should be confidence and familiarity, and that confidence is only gained by the adult tutor over time. You as a tutor cannot demand that confidence – you conquer it through actual interest and benevolence love. And affection. And when you know ho...
Read more

581. Calm down

Image
One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “A teacher needs to have gravity, albeit he or she may be young. That teacher talks and moves with gravity and seriousness, with serenity. He or she would not scream and loose their temper. With passing time he or she acquires the skill to conduct the class in a somehow smooth way. However, if their students find out they can exploit their teacher’s anger, and it turns to be like a funny game, be cautious. To sum up, the class is not a struggle whose core is setting quietness, but a time for learning English. I know all this may be not as simple as that, but anyway, put this view of things in your mind, like a sound target to reach.” / Photo from: North by Northwest (1959). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint.
Read more

1930. The necessity of engagement

Something very beautiful. When a man and a woman love each other, they may get married, if they were single. For the rest of their lives. Moreover Jesus Christ elevated this something natural to a sacrament, and thus both spouses have the grace and help from God to live a happy marriage, although you for sure will have life pains to endure. Besides marriage for Christians and everybody else is a vocation and a way to become holy on this earth. Wow! Rewritten September 7, 2026. 
Read more

157. Speeches, debates, promises, promises, promises

Image
NB.- I just realized the attached picture might someway mean something pejorative about those gentlemen. Nothing this sort I meant. Furthermore, i do not know them. Just i liked the photograph, an interesting one if you have a peek at it. Let's carry over it: The teaching coach told old Shean, "I was thinking of telling you, of giving you some brief clues so as you may have a view of higher-level, heavy tasks for your students. First, you all will have to carry out a search of terminology. Second, they implement the task, you know. From a more simple contest between two students giving speeches as each has been proposed as the principal of the school, and she, or he presents the new schedule, rules, recess-periods, new technology, whether uniform or not (in Spain some students don't like wearing uniforms of the school at all; as soon as they arrive home, they change), and so on. Or a candidate for the primaries. Or proposals to end up out the world economic crisis. Pros a...
Read more

947. One more story

Image
One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “I was recalling that teacher that knew how to listen to her students. She was attentive when a student told her something at a tutoring session, or another student told her that he had not done the assigned homework. The teacher asked him why, and it was crystal clear she was attentively listening to his reasons and trying to make the big picture of those reasons. She peered and gazed at him, like I said, as if she was trying to find out the deep reasons of this failure. All concerning her students was important to her. She was pretty attentive to her students and her colleagues. I guess one male teacher fell in love with her because of this attitude of hers. They got together at the staff’s hall and the guy, who was a novice teacher, one day told her some problems he had had. I think the next time at that hall he got stunned because he was asked how things were going – even she asked about some punctual thing...
Read more