Experiences of a teacher of English

This job of ours, teachers, is so great, you know? It’s hard, sometimes tough, but what job is not hard?  We as teachers have to personalize the education we implement. In accordance to and with the kids’ parents, ok? Because the school is a prolongation of the families’ homes, ok?  Thus we teachers should teach, educate, and love those kids, with benevolence love, which is seeking what is good for those persons we’re educating and teaching.  Thus also we will be recipient to what those students tell us. Aside and individually.  In the classroom or by remote teaching we are the adults they have as a reference… so what a responsibility we have!  We will listen to them carefully and attentively by… how should I say in English? In Spanish we say “hacerse cargo”. I would explain it: yes, here we are: listen to them, empathize with them, reckon what they’re telling us, bear in mind what they’re saying, realize about what they have in mind and in their hearts. With prudence, altogether.  And

Two posts ago I told you that we adults have a lot of positive features in our favor to learn a second or foreign language, and we do have indeed!  Also lately I’m commenting on H. D. Brown (1989). You can peek at the last posts from this blog. From that great book now I’m quoting something else about the way we grownups learn that language. Here you are, “It’s not ridiculous, is it, that adults are potentially superior to children in foreign language learning? If we could only harness that ability! Research on successful language learners shows that a significant portion of adult success is attributable to optimal conscious learning. You need to be just childlike enough to relax with the language and not be overly worried about all of its details. But at the right moment, you need to be able to monitor yourself or your language with your zoom lens, then take corrective action. In short, try not to think too much about your language learning process, but allow yourself optimal occas

Communication.  That’s sheer important in second language lessons. Otherwise… why would we summon our students into language classes? If I teach English as a foreign or second language, I have to foster and promote communication in my classroom.  Sixteen years ago I filled out a card when I was studying my PhD – I carried out those studies yet I did not finish that academic career; anyway I got a lot of interesting research for my lessons and for this blog. On that card I typed:  Communication 1 280504 “The language teaching profession was still not ready for much real communication.” (x; the underlining is ours). We as teachers should foster as well real communication and not just always simulation. Think for instance of the warm-ups we practise in class: they usually deal with real things of their lives (of our students). So we teachers should also give our logistics announcements to our dear students in the target language or L2, in the classroom. And then, after giving tho

Can adults learn a foreign or second language, or rather this is more for children and infants? Can I actually learn a language?  Lately I'm telling you that that is also perfectly possible for grownups!  Thus now I offer you a quotation from another expert at learning languages, E. W. Stevick (1989) Success with Foreign Languages: Seven Who Achieved It and What Worked for Them . Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International.  Look, "Until a few years ago, people assumed that this natural ability to 'acquire' a language died out at about the age of puberty. After that, it was thought, people could gain control of new languages only by 'learning' them. In this special technical sense, 'learning' is what we do in classrooms, with a textbook, focusing on one thing at a time under the guidance of a a teacher.  More recently, we have begun to change that view. It is still true that small children cannot learn from textbooks, of course. But we are discovering th

Do you need to learn a language? I do. English. I’m working on it.  Now I can help you by giving more advice from the scholar we’re treating about on our last posts, H. D. Brown, who is an ace at learning and teaching languages.  So now we could think that children, young ones, infants actually, have a lot of facility to learn a language, right? But if we are adults… So what? Adults have a great potential to learn and grab a language.  Our author puts, “(S)hould you, like a kid, try to pick up language subconsciously? The answer is a qualified yes. As an adult now, you most likely analyze yourself too much. Your tendency is to memorize, focus on grammar rules, translate from one language to the other, and do just about everything except subconsciously acquire it. You’re probably learning facts about the language at the expense of learning to use it. And one sure way to fail at learning a foreign language is not to use it for genuine communication.” (page 21 from the book we’re analyzi

Now I could tell you some more things - interesting ones - from our great author and scholar H. D. Brown. Remember he's an expert at learning and teaching languages.  First I would like to say that the person who achieves to learn a foreign or second tongue is... the learner who REALLY wants to learn.  I myself know some examples of people who have improved their learned language... because they did really wish to learn. A person like that is a powerful engine that takes initiatives and makes firm resolutions and tries to fulfill them.  That person is not passive at all in the classroom and he or she cooperates with their teacher and with their classmates at the beautiful learning process of a second or foreign language.  That person tries to know himself and gets perfectly conscious of HOW he learns, HOW he studies, HOW he improves, HOW he discards what doesn't work and takes up what works fine.  Each class is a step forward, each hour dedicated to learning the language is a g

Let’s continue studying what H. D. Brown suggests for learning a language, which amounts to some very useful ideas.  The key point is that the learner who achieves to learn that tongue has to be one that takes initiatives, and actually and really wishes to learn. That person is very active: no firm resolutions, no learning. On the contrary, if he or she plunges into the cold lake, they will for sure attain to learn that language.  I know a friend of mine who currently has an advanced English level. He has taken and made the resolution of working on a method which includes a textbook of CEFR level C1.  CEFR stands for Common European Framework of Reference for languages, where C1 is advanced and C2 – the top one – requires proficiency by the learner, so very advanced, so as to say.  Well, you know, he practices the four language skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Since he is almost locked down by the pandemics, he practices speaking on his own, this is, he does the activi

Many of us wish to learn a language, and we do need this one.  Well, we can read from H. D. Brown (1989) A Practical Guide to Language Learning. A Fifteen-Week Program of Strategies for Success . New York: McGraw-Hill.  I mean, we can turn to colleagues like him, and then learn a lot from them. I said “colleagues” but actually he is a master.  And if you read from that book you will learn that each learner has to find his or her own pathway to success, for each learner has his or her unique way to learn, one in which they come to feel well.  On this post I pick up some ideas from that book, about which I wrote a paper for a college journal some fourteen years ago.  The learner thus has to invest his best. Because learning and acquiring a second or foreign language demands the best from you. If you agree to put all the best, you for sure will attain and achieve to succeed.  Otherwise if the learner sits down in the classroom, in the language classroom, and that’s it, and he’s like oblig

Many of us wish and need to learn a language. How to achieve this stupendous goal? By relaxing. We learn when we are relaxed. Also in other circumstances, but better if relaxed for example in classes.  Some sane and healthy tension, however, is necessary. But we have to be somehow and rather relaxed.  I notice that my dear students now are rather relaxed in the classroom, or at least mostly so.  When you’re relaxed, the language input may more easily get stuck in mind. You learn more easily. And of course as well you can subconsciously acquire the language.  Thus there is a nice atmosphere of cooperation in the classroom.  Perhaps in your classroom now there is more tension, but what about trying to get as much as possible that nice and relaxing atmosphere? As much as possible.  Another point that helps both teach and educate your students is love them, with benevolence love, this is, by seeking what is good for them. We have to love our students. With prudence, with prudence I insist.

We have begun the lessons. You may know I teach grownups. It’s great. Also I liked teaching kids.  One of the strong points this school year – not the only one – is reading books. Reading books boosts learning and acquiring vocab and grammar, so the language.  One of the group-classes has chosen to read books on their own. The other group-class perhaps will read the same graded reader for all the students. Hopefully we will read more than one reader or unabridged book. Say one per term.  What I mean here is that I want for the students to choose what they discern is better for their learning English. It’s them who have to learn and wish to learn! They’re co-protagonists with the teacher.  I plan each lesson but I take into account what they can do in the class on their own.  For example last Friday two students got knotted and intertwined in a conversation between them – in English. I let them carry on, for the main purpose of lessons is… learning and acquiring the language.  Thus I ke

I like to teach, although it demands a lot of commitment. Well, any job exacts commitment.  Every job is some nice service to other people, to society. And exerting and carrying out that job demands not only justice but also charity and love to those people you are serving.  If you are committed, you may catch yourself being happy. As a consequence. I do not work just to be happy: I work for the people I serve; and as a result I will be happy -- that's the way to think, I guess.  Also you may have a transcendent view: I may work for God and for human people.  I as a teacher have to treat nice my students and their families, and everyone else I treat at my daily working.  I said that justice is okay but it’s not enough: treating human people demands treating them as persons they are. And all that has to turn into smiling and politeness and cordiality. Also all that has to be honest, sincere.  Within two days I start lessons proper. I had planned what I’m going to say to my dear stud

Many people need to learn a foreign or second language. For their work for example or perhaps they want to get a new job. And it’s our mission as teachers to facilitate that. Now amid these special circumstances of the Covid-19 crisis.  Lately I've told you my readers that reading books however the format may be a stupendous way of learning and acquiring that tongue.  Not only is reading good for learning: we have to practice listening, speaking and writing. But reading is so great and it comes to the same plate: it actually helps a lot, also as Stephen Krashen puts it.  I do it and I have done it over many years and I can assure you that you learn a great deal.  I’m reading a Jules Verne’s novel, in a complete and unabridged version. It’s okay. Each learner has his or her own unique way of affording learning a language, even the same person changes and shifts ways of learning along his or her career as a learner.  I read a couple of pages and then go back to focus randomly upon va

We are still at the beginning of a new academic year. And it’s good we teachers and our students alike be enthused. Even now that we are going through this Covid-19 crisis.  Anyway, what I’m saying on this post may affect any time around the school year.  I teach English. Currently to adults. And I do know that students can learn the language, but also they can acquire it, i.e. learn it subconsciously.  We learners of English also acquire the tongue if exposed to it at a level we can understand, better if the texts are a bit above our level. This is, finely tuned at a level which is a bit above us.  The scholar who explained all this theory is well-known, Stephen D. Krashen (Chicago, 1941).  He also said that if the learner reads books freely, he will acquire a lot of the target language.  It’s also my experience: I’ve learned a lot of English through reading, and keep on doing so.  Presently I read Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon . In an unabridged version, published by Wordswor

We teachers must think some points out, even more if we are starting a new school year.  I was thinking that for learning a second or foreign language with success, we learners have to find our own unique pathway to success. And each learner has his or her own way: what works for me may not work for you.  And we teachers in the classroom or online have to facilitate to find that unique way to success in learning that language.  Henry Douglas Brown is one of the authors that say this same thing: find your own way of learning!  We teachers have to plan lessons but we should think of helping our dear students find their own learning ways.  Each learner learns in a more or less different way.  On individual tutoring sessions we can assist our students in this way. Those tutorials are crucial. Because we may be making those students think of their learning processes.  When I taught kids we had those tutorials. Better if male teachers talk with male students and the same for women.   Also we

It is convenient for us teachers to have some professional enthusiasm, even more at the beginning of a new academic year. Some, or a lot of enthusiasm.  Some of us teachers teach a foreign or second language, English in my case. Is it appropriate to teach grammar to our students? Or otherwise the good thing is communication in the classroom and grammar should be inferred by those people in and out of the classroom?  Communication is the goal of English language lessons, but grammar is necessary too. Grammar is like the language skeleton. We communicate with other people by using grammar patterns.  Well, sometimes it can be convenient for the students to infer the grammar themselves, from communication.  Yet grammar as presented to the learners can facilitate that communication, and facilitate things.  Sometimes the teacher can focus on some grammar problems the students frequently encounter.  For example the teacher can present grammar patterns the students commit mistakes and errors w

So we have said that we are about to start a new school year. In some way we have already started it, for we have thought of nice and convenient goals for our students.  The main star this year may be reading. I mean, we are going to practice all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Yet I want to especially foster and inspire Reading.  This latter skill helps learn the target language, English in our case. It’s my experience. I also learn English, like my dear students. And reading provides with the language and other cognitive subskills that foster a deep learning.  Namely I will encourage my students to purchase graded readers, in accordance to their levels.  Some learners of mine have A2, but most of them comprise B1 through C1 – I’m referring to CEFR levels of a language, where CEFR stands for Common European Framework of Reference for languages. A1 and A2 are basic, B1 and B2 are intermediate, and C1 and C2 are advanced. I will tell my students to get g

We are just before a new school year or we are starting it. And we may not know how that school year will develop, and whether we will teach face-to-face or remotely (!).  Anyway, we may be planning the curriculum or syllabus. I’m working on it.  You know what? When carrying out that curriculum and trying to think what the most important thing is, I have concluded, very quickly, as if by intuition and not by some deep and heavy and long reasoning, that the most important thing is… that my students should be happy!  They should be happy while learning.  I teach adults, but the same may be applicable if you teach kids. Those students should be happy. Also I should be happy.  When I say happy I mean they should be treated nice by me in the classroom. Only in that way will they learn English, which is what I teach. Otherwise… they would learn less, if anything at all.  I must treat my students as human persons and with all the dignity they deserve.  Also if I taught kids I should treat th

We may be starting a new school year or otherwise soon we will start one. And we want to be good and competent teachers, right?  In order to be that good teacher we have to devote some time to train ourselves, although we may be hectic. It is a matter to dedicate ten minutes every day, perhaps between two activities. It is a matter to create that habit.  And that habit I would say is reading. Reading about the discipline we teach and how to teach it, perhaps in the new normality we live in because of the Covid-19 pandemics.  Among those reads I think we could read literature classics: They were written by some of the best minds across history and they provide with human values every teacher should have.  Also we could read from other teachers who post and contribute to websites on the Internet.  As well we need some philosophy: That discipline exists to aid each human being how to live wisely. Always in accordance to human dignity.  Why should we teachers read deeply? Because we have h

We teachers seem to work for those low-achiever students who deserve our attention, both at face-to-face teaching as well as at remote teaching. Well, we also take care of high-achievers, right?  At present I’m reading a book about history geniuses – awesome. Michelangelo, Diego Velázquez, Isaac Newton, Thomas Alva Edison, Albert Einstein, Antoni Gaudí, Steve Jobs, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Gerardo Diego…  Well, you know, quite many of them and others… were rather bad students at school! Are we not having geniuses in our classrooms? We may have some…  What I mean is that our schools should also foster our dear students’ creativity. Do our schools kill creativity? What are our schools like? What do they resemble?  Because of that we have to assist and attend high-achievers.  Quite many years ago – and I teach English – my school assistant principal told me to hand out extra worksheets to the students that finished before their classmates and eventually got with no work to carry out. 

We live in a tough situation, because of the Covid-19 crisis, yet this crisis is getting out the best from so many people. Also from so many teachers, all throughout the world. Thank you teachers.  Also I wanted to tell you today about an anecdote which helped me think, some days ago. It has been rather long since I have taught face-to-face.  Some days ago a nice and kind relative of mine, who suffers some mental illness that makes him pretty slow at thinking, asked me please to help him work on his laptop, one he has not employed for long… And I found myself at thinking, Okay, what can I do for you? For facing the computer screen, that person could do a multiplication of tasks! Where to start from?  Up to some extent I was at a bit difficult or embarrassing situation, but thank God soon I thought I could refresh my teaching job with that person’s help, and I taught him some basic tasks he could do, with the icons that appeared on the screen, and I told him like a first lesson about wh

Every teacher in principle wants his or her students would learn, right? Yep, it’s so, I would say.  Sometimes in the classroom or on remote teaching we teachers might be focusing on our teaching, but up to what extent do we track our students are actually learning? I know most of you operate that way and are concerned about your students’ learning.  Okay, in my career as a teacher I have encountered mainly two scholars who have made nice emphasis on learning strategies, applied to learning a language. Those writers are H. D. Brown and Rebecca Oxford.  We teachers should learn about learning strategies, thus we could help our students more fully.  Learning strategies are operations employed by the learner to aid the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information. ... They are specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations. Those words appear on page 8 on Rebecca

Now and in the context of benevolence love, and as a continuation of last post I would quote an interesting piece of advice from that interview between Angela Watson and Robyn Jackson. Please notice it… (The link to the website is on post #3544). How do you show students you are CHOOSING not to engage? A long time ago I wrote a couple of blog posts, and the title of the series was, Are You a Discipline Problem? And it was directed at teachers. It wasn’t to blame teachers, but it was to make this point: A discipline problem is anything that disrupts instruction. Anything. Which means that a child can be a discipline problem, but it also means that a teacher can be a discipline problem. When you choose not to escalate the situation as a teacher, you choose not to become a discipline problem, because the moment that you start getting in the last word with that student, you now are playing that student’s game. What you’re trying to do is get the student on your page, not get on the s

As I said on last post, on this blog I have written a lot on behavior classroom management. Also you may have noticed that I have shown I have had a lot of affection to my students. It is love of benevolence: Seek what is good for those persons. It is not my merit – I have learned that from others.  Okay then. We teachers, when we have to reprimand a student’s disrespectful attitude in the classroom, should speak with that individual aside, apart the class, in a private situation.  My dad used to say that we would get more with an affectionate word than with a lot of quarrel. And it’s really so!  On last post I included a link to an interview between Angela Watson and Robyn Jackson. It’s a great article and you may learn a lot.  As well I have met some great teachers who precisely were pretty normal, regular and ordinary. And they had that great affection toward their students. With prudence, but affection anyway.  There were behavior problems in their classrooms, they had, indeed, but

I have written a lot on classroom behavior management. Angela Watson and Robyn Jackson also have and very interesting stuff indeed.  There should be rules in the classroom. Yes indeed. And we teachers have to distinguish between possible teenager disruption and disrespectful attitudes, which these later ones have always to be cut off in the classroom, with prudence and tact, without humiliating and shaming the kids. Concerning mere disruption, sometimes we have to cut off, some other times it is not essential.  These are some ideas you can find on Angela Watson’s blogs, namely on https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/respond-rude-disrespectful-student-attitudes/   Yet and at the same time we have to educate our dear students on liberty. Why? Because man and woman ARE free persons. Basically and deeply so. And the student has to learn how to administer his or her liberty.  Once I was surprised because my school’s assistant principal told me something curious w

To be a teacher? It’s so great – it may be tough, though. But I retain that being a teacher is great. You have some students with you in the classroom, and firstly some families you have to attend to, properly. All this is pretty human and humane.  That teacher eventually gets interested in his or her students’ progress and learning and becoming great citizens.  I say with Aristotle that we teachers have to love our dear students with benevolence love, which as you know or may know is seeking what’s good for those students.  That teacher does not confine to plan his or her lessons, yet that person tries hard to think of each student and his or her progress, as much as possible, or at least that teacher thinks, when planning the lessons, what those learners do need most, at such and such circumstances.  Even Carlos Cardona in his Ética del quehacer educativo states that there should be certain friendship between the teacher and the students. These latter ones permit to be educated them

Reading books is so good and convenient for learning and acquiring a second language, as I said on the previous post. It's great. I personally do it myself – I’m learning and acquiring English.  On the last post I described some techniques you can implement to read in order to learn a second or foreign tongue.  Something else I sometimes do is focusing on some words, phrases or sentences I already know but my students are learning as something new. They’re some more basic expressions I learned years ago but my learners are learning now.  As well and as a consequence I prepare myself to teach those expressions to my students, now considering next school year.  Some of my students – well, few of them actually – tend to translate those books they are to read into Spanish, our mother tongue. No way, they have to read and enjoy directly in English.  The point is to have books or readers that are in accordance to their levels: they understand them and also there’s some new language: word

If you’re learning or teaching a second or foreign language, you should remember that any language has four skills to practice: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, ok?  Today I would like to say something about reading. Reading is so great. The language learner has to read intensely and massively, and that counts toward a lot of learning that tongue, whatever that tongue is.  I personally read a book at least some brief minutes a day. I try and enjoy it. Reading is great, as I said.  When reading you’re thinking in that target language.  I come across some new words and enjoy learning them.  I use the dictionary rather little – I’m learning English, by the way.  I read a couple of pages each time or so, and then I come back to what I’ve read and then randomly I pay attention and focus on some words and idioms and take like a mental picture. Memory is something you can train and it's elastic, like chewing gum... In that way I can tell you that I’ve learned quite many words an

There is a remarkable difference, if you’re a teacher, like me, or a boss, between auctoritas and potestas .  Let’s go with the second one. I mean, the teacher for example can be like a cop or a sergeant or so and exert some kind of power on the basis of shouting at his students. I have nothing against the police and the army – all my admiration goes to those professions.  But what I mean is that a teacher can try to master his students on the basis of shouting and avoiding any disruption among his students.  However, can that teacher really educate his students?  Much better is whether that teacher has some authority.  The difference is pretty big. Authority is on the basis of really educating those kids or those adults the teacher teaches. Authority is moral. It is built upon some nice mastering of the subject he teaches plus the respect his students devote to that teacher because he loves them and also behaves honorably.  He has gained that authority amongst his students over time.

Now with remote teaching you teacher may be addressing each student, individually or otherwise by groups. Let’s hope the Covid-19 crisis be left behind and die out pretty soon. Thus I pray to God it would ensue in that way.  Face-to-face teaching may be the normal thing anyway in most of our cases as teachers. And we may have small classes or large ones.  What I intend to write today about is that it seems good to address and appeal to each student in a direct way.  We may have quite many students in the classroom but it seems sound to address each student. We don’t address a mass of students but we want to teach each individual.  Our students should not hide in a mass of people. We have otherwise to address each and every student.  In order to do that way we can sweep the class of learners and thus appeal to each student’s responsibility when speaking to them. That is the only way we will achieve to teach and educate each student.  As well we teachers should treat each student aside