2589. How to Hold a Conversation in a Foreign Language



Whenever the student wants to say a noun or any other words in a conversation in English and he doesn’t know it, something he can do is to explain in English the meaning of that word. 

It is a communicative learning strategy. Also he can use a periphrasis. / Photo from: Conversation alvinreid com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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

1044. You're doing it pretty well

Image
Teacher A said to teacher B, “You as the teacher can assign as homework for the students to do whatever they think is okay. Implement it one day.  Give them examples of what they could need: re-read a text to understand it, to revise a graded [or marked] test, do some drill from the course-book exercises...” / Photo from: iccsd k12 ia us. Climbing a mountain of ice.
Read more

3040. Enjoying their Textbooks?

Image
  In Spain at least many students don’t know how to study English and its correspondent school subject, and therefore they also fail at learning and acquiring that language. They don’t know what to do with their textbook and activity book, for training for a test for instance. It is a school subject so different from History, Biology, Chemistry, Literature, etc. Therefore too there’s a big failure at getting good grades: those students get bad grades definitely. There was a case in which a student one day thought of carefully re-reading the texts from the textbook at home, trying to understand the gist of the story plus each sentence within that story… and he did improve his grades, over time! No one had ever told him how to treat those texts, which on the other hand were interesting – a story about some specific characters, and funny besides. Those students who do not know how to study, moreover, have to face up with tests they do not know how to answer: they weren...
Read more