Experiences of a teacher of English

  I teach adults. English to adults. And they may be great, so great, and demanding.  I’ve also taught kids, and I’ve written a lot on classroom management. With adults the thing seems to be different, evidently. And if you teach this public, I’d like to point out something that also may help you if you teach teens for example.  I guess deference is a term that suits here, both adults and kids. When you get into the classroom, alongside when you encounter adults at the school halls and corridors, you must refill up your tank with a big amount of patience.  Yes, but all is smoothened if you love your students, if you become able to actually listen to them, with honest affection and attention.  I would tell you too: Don’t argue with them at all, don’t quarrel with them: all may be suited and solved in a nice and patient way. Just listen to them, and try and understand them, and their viewpoints, being in their shoes: perhaps they may be right, and you’ve got to ch...

  You know what? Like one month ago I finished to teach English to a nice class of adults, 0 beginners, or better said, false beginners, for they had some knowledge of English.  And over all the school year I have been struggling to actually teach them, and striving also for them to learn something, you know, like the basics. I don’t usually encounter such a group, beginners I mean. It was a nice fight to really make good use of time – tell me, what can you do when the students know close to nothing, and they’ve got few communicative competences?  As I said, it was a nice group, and the ones who persevered along the school year, well, you know, they did have a real interest to learn – so nice people they were.  I’ve been screwing my brain to learn what to do with such people; even I consulted the Internet to learn about such a group. Plus the group was not very much settled, and only a small group stayed with us until the end of the year – I mean us because we were ...

  You know what? A couple of days ago I came across a new class of students I have to teach English to. They are adults, with a big wish to learn that language.  I had planned to convey the same messages both in English and in Spanish, their – our – mother tongue. I came to the classroom with enthusiasm, prone to serve those great people.  And you know what I encountered? They are beginners and false beginners! Great students though.  My assistant teacher was with me – he is learning how to teach English and is a native speaker himself, from San Diego, California. Ok, they knew nothing or close to.  I had brought photocopies for them, taken from a textbook of A2/B1 level, this is, low beginner to lower intermediate – more A2 than B1, because that copy was from the very first unit.  But my dear students needed I had to explain and present absolutely every detail from basic questions, you know, present simple with Do and Does, and similar basic stuff. Oh, man...

  I teach English to adults. It’s so great … and demanding.  Adults have some characteristic way of learning the language. For example they tend to focus on specific grammar patterns and ways of saying things in the target language. Well, it’s something I also do when learning that language myself. And it is something I cannot change. It is something we can take advantage from, anyway.  Even in that way they can learn quite a lot. You know, it doesn’t matter they would ask me questions in class that show they are focusing on grammar. It’s ok. It’s ok ever if also we as teachers facilitate there is plenty of communication in English in class.  I mean, do not confine as a teacher to teach grammar and language facts, but provide a lot of communication in class.  When some newcomer arrives at one of those groups of mine – and I’m thinking of one specific group – that new student says kind of, Oh I can see my classmates have a lot of fluency while in my case … Why do...

  Today I’m trying to say something that may help you if you teach college students or adults or even kids.  Something I’ve lately observed is that the teacher has to let those students do, he or she has to allow them to do, by combining authority with indulgence, authority with clever lenience.  First premise: the teacher must become an authority, a moral authority in class. And that’s gotten if the teacher becomes somebody who can say things that positively influence upon his or her students. That teacher achieves that things fall on good soil, only if he works hard and sets an example of a person who has something that really makes his students learn how to work fine. I mean, that teacher is someone you can rely on, because he has gotten that authority, which is moral authority.  Do you know what I mean? I’ve seen teachers whose students do what they are told to do because their teacher is a moral authority and has prestige – he is somebody that deserves to be lis...

  Are you a teacher yourself? I mean, a second or foreign language teacher?  I’m going to tell you something today which hopefully may help you with your lessons. Let’s see to it.  It’s common to say that we language teachers have to have our students practice the language they’re learning and we should not confine our teaching to teaching language facts. And that’s okay. We should not confine our teaching to grammar and little else.  Yep, that’s right. However, let us not think we cannot teach those grammar facts, like for example verbal tenses or the use of the comparative of irregular adjectives.  Thus, if I’m teaching a bit of grammar or lexis, I don’t have to think I’m doing something wrong. Come on, as well you have to give your dear students language facts and grammar and the like, because those students do need those facts… to be able to precisely communicate in the target language. And above all if they are adults or even teens.  They do need the l...

  Some of my students have lately improved a lot, and I notice it on our dear online lessons. I teach English as a foreign language. I teach grownups. And they are autonomous learners, so also when we finish the school year at the end of May I guess they will continue learning that marvelous language on their own.  An autonomous learner is the one who really and truly wishes to learn. If he or she is learning English, they will carry out a series of activities. Namely they practice the four language skills: listening, reading and writing.  Did I say four? I did. Well, one of them also practices speaking by replying to himself when doing exercises as if he was answering on the class to several people. Even I sometimes do it myself, when learning that language! It is not some crazy speaking alone, to myself!  For example some months ago I used to dedicate some daily minutes to a C1 English book. C1 is advanced but not the top, which is C2. And when the speaking activit...

  Today I copy and paste a program I have designed for a friend of mine. He wants to learn English, so I propose him the following plan. Basically he wants to read English more fluently. I hope it may be of any interest for you my readers. There you can see what is my regular teaching like. Also he says English is an issue he has always wished to master and he has tried more often than not. He is retired, yet he often is very busy. Posible plan de inglés para NN 5 de abril de 2021 1.      Si lo que quiere es leer y entender más, y leer con más soltura, le puede servir utilizar un buen diccionario online, como wordreference.com. Es muy completo y útil. 2.      Si lo que quiere es mejorar en inglés globalmente, debe practicar las cuatro destrezas de la lengua: listening, speaking, reading, writing . 3.      Más gramática y vocabulario, si bien estos se pueden aprender al practicar esas cuatro habilidades o destrezas. 4. ...

We teachers wish all our students would learn and be happy in the classroom and at remote teaching. Yes, we do.  Sometimes I have written that they have to learn how to learn. However, they will learn how to learn if they learn before.  I mean, they need to learn and set up a lot of knowledge and ideas and concepts in order to have something in mind upon which they can think about.  They can think about learning if they have previously learned a lot of things.  They can have abstract ideas when they are some, say, eleven years or so, maybe ten. Well, it is up to each kid to establish when they are capable to think abstractly.  As well I have said that good students know they are good students, and they can use different learning strategies and think about them, so they can keep the ones that work, and discard the ones that don’t work; yet this demands some maturity and having learned a lot of things before, when they’re children and thus before puberty and adole...

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 o...

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...

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...

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 ...

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 unabrid...

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 m...

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 ...

Teaching is great, tiring though. Currently I teach adults. And at the beginning of the lesson, as a warmer or warm-up activity, I do what I tell you now. I teach English as a foreign language. First I write on the whiteboard today’s date, and we have a brief discussion on today’s weather.  Then I tell them about learning English: tips which could help them learn English, from some scholars and experts like H. D. Brown, Jeremy Harmer, Rebecca Oxford.  My purpose is for them to get aware that it’s the student who has to be like a powerful learning-engine! Each learner has his or her own personal learning style, which it’s them who have to find out about.  The learner is the main responsible one to learn.  You wish to learn, you will achieve it. You don’t really want to, no learning is accomplished. There’s effort, there’s a step forward. Each item learned, one step forward. Each effort invested at communicating in English, one step has been walked for...

Teaching is great, as I’ve already said. Several times. I’ve said it several times. Ok.  When teaching a second or foreign language we teachers have to create the atmosphere of communication in the classroom, even at the school corridors and halls. Communication in the school, that’s it. And communication in that language we’re teaching.  But also we have to give our dear students language facts: vocabulary, grammar points, curious and interesting points about the language.  And we should carry out activities where our students have to interact with us their teachers and with other learners as well.  This morning I observed some of my students dialoguing in English at the beginning of the class. English is our common target language. They were talking about their yesterday’s experience at speaking with some American volunteers, young ones, who offer conversation sessions for my learners. These latter ones are adults, mostly retired people.  ...

We teachers do know that our dear students have to learn how to study, how to read with attention in order to memorize some concepts and relate them to one another.  This way of studying entails some mental processes. And we teachers may be experts at this point.  For that reason we should also dedicate some daily time to study ourselves. Also because we teachers have to recycle our knowledge and aptitudes. We are capable, likely, to help our dear students. We as adults have some special ways to study which can illustrate our students’ ways of studying.  For example we can plan our daily studying. And thus we can teach our students how to plan this point.  Also we know how to read for the gist.  Also we know how to read and take in the main points and try to memorize them.  Also we know ourselves and can deduce that at that or that specific times we’re more capable to memorize.  Also we know how to relate our previous knowl...