710. His secret? Just studying




One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “Last week I had a tutorial with a marriage – I had called them to come to the school to talk about their son. The father had studied English when at school.


He told me something that can be interesting for our students. He said he was not good at learning English. All in all, once he thought this flaw shouldn’t go farther. Enough was enough. He plunged into the coursebook and started to analyze and try to understand the exercises and the texts. Little by little. With his dictionary. He was understanding! Well, he thought, this is not that difficult! He was glad when he realized of his progress.


On coming weeks he offered as a volunteer in class to say the answers to the exercises. He told me that he even began to like the subject of English, because he got mixed up in it. I support these experiences: I’ve seen it in my students, sure thing.” / Photo from: migrelief com. Boy Studying

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3659. Learning a Language by (Just) Reading You Said?

  A lot of people want to learn a second or foreign language. Me too. So do I.  At the same time I teach that language I’m learning and acquiring, namely English.  And you may know that I often say that reading books and graded readers help learn and acquire those target languages. Indeed. It’s my experience, plus Stephen Krashen says it’s so, even he pinpoints and says that fiction is better than non-fiction.  Ok now I can say that only after having read a lot and used the dictionary also a lot can you learn many a word. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.  Only then some or many words get stuck in memory. Well, maybe you'll learn a lot of vocabulary by other means. Then you can use them when speaking or writing in the target tongue. Because you’ve gotten a massive tank of lexis.  Of course there are more words you can understand than the ones you can use when communicating. Passive vocab is ampler than active vocab.  Then you can remember many words. And use them. And perhaps it
Read more

3660. Those Great Teachers We Like to Recall from Our Childhood

  Let’s see. Do we really want teaching quality? We do, I guess. It depends mostly on the teacher’s quality. If we wish to improve our classroom teaching, well, we have to better ourselves as teachers. And I do know many of you are trying and working on it.  If we wish our schools improve, then let us improve as teachers ourselves. And that is fulfilled on regular and ordinary days, like today!  Now I’m reading a book on Spanish teacher and teachers’ teacher Tomás Alvira (1906-1992). And he stated that quality on education (and we as teachers are also educators) is accomplished through quality on the teacher.  A teacher needs to gain virtues, or values, like a strong will, imagination, dedication, a thorough personality, a strong vocation, attention, motivation to also motivate the kids or adults …  That teacher ought to have a nice and strong will, otherwise how is he or she going to get their students interested in the school subject?  Something else. A teacher has to read and study
Read more

2064. Connecting people from different countries

Image
Something we teachers of English or other languages have to bear in mind when teaching adults is that the students should learn and practice communication, and we shouldn’t confine our classes to give them facts of the languages.  Also in kids’ case.  The point isn’t for them to know information about the language, yet to learn how to communicate in that language.  Thus we could plan our classes with that aim.  I state all this because we could dedicate a long time to teach facts, information, something nearly dead, say.  In this way, besides we contribute to connect people from so varied countries. It’s something brilliant, isn’t it? / Photo from: people-happy-cheering bachflowerssingapore wordpress com
Read more

2398. How Teachers Can Go in the Same Direction

Image
Obedience isn’t something just from the past.  We teachers have to fulfill the rules and criteria of our heads of department.  It’s the way a school works. Plus our initiatives, of course.  I would say that if there’s something we think otherwise, we can always tell the department head about our criteria or thoughts, with trust and peace.  All of us are pulling the cart toward the same direction, aren’t we?  All this stuff isn’t naive: it’s the way I’ve seen schools work well: all people in the same direction and with good manners and affection to one another. / Photo from: Second-Grade-Data-MeetingInside azednews com
Read more

1781. How To Do Things in a Correct Way

Image
Teacher trainer Mrs. M. J. A. taught me a way to teach verbal tenses and other grammar points.  First the students listen to the examples of what I did last weekend for instance, in past simple. I told them what I did.  Then I asked them what they did, molding their sentences for a bit and correcting their sentences; typically they will say sentences in present simple.  Then I write the examples on the smart board or chalkboard. So now they read out the sentences in past simple, one by one.  Then they copy them on their notebooks, plus other examples from their invention – I correct what I see in some notebooks whilst circulating across the classroom. It’s something rather naturalistic: they listen, they speak, they read, they write.  And so we have the four language skills applied. You can try and do it yourself.  In warmers at the beginning of next classes we will practice these steps for a short time, and not one day, but several ones. / Photo from: ma
Read more