Experiences of a teacher of English

  One month ago I wrote down a note that said something like “The teacher’s function is to get knowledge into his or her students’ minds.” In fact it was taken from a book I was then reading, by J. B. Chautard, which book was published about a century ago, and it has been published into numerous editions ever since. Actually the note was in Spanish and it sounded kind of “La misión del docente es que los conocimientos penetren en las mentes de sus alumnos.”  And I guess it’s just great, and nowadays we should say the same about our function as teachers. Well, you know, you teacher may feel some burn-out or you may be hectic, or even alienated, yet just let me tell you something which might perhaps help you out somehow.  I consider the teacher as also – or primarily – source of knowledge. For that aim he or she ought to continuously keep learning and reading about the subject they teach. Just a few minutes per day, or half an hour if attainable.  And then we have that...

  We well may be finishing one more school year – if you are for example a committed teacher, like most of you are. And we want our dear students would learn a lot, as well as they would be happy.  I was wondering what an ideal teacher should be like. One of the main premises is he or she must be an authority in class. Are you one? Am I one? I guess an authority teacher is the one who achieves their students would actually learn.  I don’t mean those teachers ought to be like a sheer guard in front of a gang of convicts. So let me show you what I’ve seen in some classrooms, and which accounts for being a real authority.  You know, that teacher must treat his or her students in an exquisite way. I mean, they should respect those students in class – I’ve seen it and I’m now thinking of a teacher I had at high school who was an authentic authority – he treated his students – us! – in a tactful way – he never humiliated a kid at all in class. And when he met us out of the...

  Do our kids need limits? Our kids at school I mean? Yep, they do. They cannot do all that pleases them and all that they may think of. If you’re a teacher, you may understand what I mean.  Also all of you readers have passed through school, at any grade it may be.  But they are limits that protect those school kids. They are there for their sake. For them to learn. And for them ultimately to be happy. Who doesn’t remember and recall some good teachers we have had, when we were young, or at any other crucial age? All of us can remember that teacher who influenced great when I was a schoolboy or a schoolgirl. They become beacons for our lives. Maybe we are not aware how much they intervened in our lives. Or perhaps we are.  Furthermore, any teacher of kids needs to set some rules for his or her young students, don’t they? To begin with, some days ago a rural doctor who is a friend of mine and he knows some of the high school teachers of those small towns where he wor...

  Believe me, it’s something great to teach English to both kids and adults, and to help them learn and acquire it. It’s great, tiresome though. Well, which job is not something tiring?  We cannot, however, as teachers confine our work to just teach English, or any other language. We need to be aware that we are facilitating some people would talk to some others. There is the core point of the issue. We are connecting people with one another.  We have to bear in mind that our job is that great: one person communicates with another one. We teach English for practical purposes, communication in a word. And communication is something so human! And in class there must be that communication, between the teacher and the students, and among them all.  We do not confine to teaching language facts, although we have to also teach them. We are making up bridges among people. And that’s simply great. Isn’t it?  Thus let’s have in mind that we are treating human people, huma...

  We teachers have to manage classroom behavior, okay. But more important is to have our dear students to work and learn and study and read and … okay too. We have to keep an eye on our students to avoid they would be disruptive.  However, as well we have to trust and confide in them. It’s a balance, you know. Unless we trust them, we cannot educate them well, or maybe at all.  If we trust those young people, well, you know, they will grow into better persons. We need to be accomplices to them. They play in our team, so as to say.  In principle we will believe what they tell us: everyone deserves the right to be believed. It seems better we could be sometime deceived than not to trust them. Well, we must not be naïve. But let’s accept what they tell us. If one student lies to me, I will have to teach him how to say the truth, and why lies are no good. Remember we are educating them, and their parents have entrusted them to us to be raised in an honorable way.  W...

  One issue every teacher thinks of from time to time, or perhaps often because that teacher may have that kind of problem, above all if he or she is beginning their career as a teacher, is how to manage classroom behavior.  Today I’m trying to say something, apart from what I’ve written so far on quite many posts. You may find more under the tag or label management of the class .  The main point I think is important is to have the clear idea that both the teacher and his or her students are in the classroom to work, as said in plain English. They come to the schoolroom to work. The students to learn, to learn by working, and their dear teacher to teach them and help them become full and honorable persons.  So the main concern of their teacher ought not to be classroom management, but how to have those dear people to work and learn.  Nevertheless if some problem comes up in class, some behavior problem I mean, that teacher might say or show something, depending ...

  A teacher needs to have enthusiasm for his or her teaching. And they will show that enthusiasm when teaching, at least sometimes it will be shown.  Now I can remember a teacher, some weeks ago, one who teaches English, and one day in class you could notice his eagerness when writing on the whiteboard and trying to explain something in English.  I know some of you may have disruption and discipline problems in class, and you may be fighting against that problem, but what I mean is that a teacher oughtn’t to have lukewarmness and indifference, and feel kind of well you are there to fill out your lessons with a minimum effort, and you’ll be paid.  You cannot be one with indifference toward your teaching and your students. And I know that most of you teachers are committed and try and do your best in class.  Notice that most of times your students get motivated if you also are so.  One should not teach with some paper notes which are old and getting yellowish...

  Do our dear students ever think? I gave that title to a previous post, remember?  And the point is that we as teachers have to teach our students to think, to engage their brains, to learn also how to study and learn.  They have to get the most from their textbook: thus we have to teach them to study.  As well we can elicit what they do for studying their textbook, so their classmates will learn new and sound ways to study, perhaps.  By the way, at many schools and in some countries they are starting to think that… it’s better for the students to have a paper book than a tablet.  Ok, let’s proceed.  We teachers also have to make them think: we oughtn’t to give all the stuff too much digestible: they have to learn to study and draw their own conclusions.  Something we may implement in class is to think with them. I mean, you know, the teacher can think aloud and so his or her dear students will see how to think.  Even something I do with my ...

  I know that you want to become a good teacher. One who makes his or her students think, right?  This latter thing may seem obvious, but do our dear students really think? Do they invest all their cleverness capabilities upon learning in the best possible way?  In order to achieve our dear students would think, and more if they are kids, we have to teach them how to think. If they settle down to study their books, we may be heading in the right direction.  We as teachers may think in a loud voice, say, to teach them to think, in class.  I was remembering that when I taught kids at the first school where I began to teach, we had, in accordance to their parents, there in the nineties of last century, a plan for educating them. It was not one more school subject, like math or literature or biology, but they were weekly sessions about topics where we made them think: ethics, how to solve problems, virtues and values, situations they might face as teens, etcetera. I...

  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...

  So we have already finished another school year or are about to do it.  Do we teachers have into account that we have to also educate our students, and so in accordance with their parents’ views?  We also have to educate them in freedom. If we educate our students like they were robots… we are doing wrong with them.  I teach adults. Yet something similar in some way may be applied to teens. I believe that a lot of English may be learned by reading books – like Krashen himself puts it himself. And, you know?, I say to those learners of mine they have to purchase graded readers or unabridged books. On their own.  As well they have to massively and intensively read, on their own. Beside what we actually do in the classroom to learn English. On their own, I said, by themselves. I leave them on their own.  Something I do is I encourage them to read, and when they’ve finished that graded reader, then, come on, get a new one. Or an unabridged book, which for the...

  The teacher in a face-to-face or online classroom? He or she must be elegant. I mean they have to be tactful, respectful, loving toward their students. What I mean by loving is one with benevolence love, i.e. they will seek the best for their students.  For example, that teacher has to know how his or her students are at each moment, and whether they feel good with the activity he or she is carrying out before those students.  And this value is obtained through those affection and benevolence love, plus through experience at the classroom.  As well that teacher will try and be discreet, cautious and tactful. And he or she will say things that will not hurt their students.  Furthermore that teacher will seek what builds up their students’ personality, in accordance with what their parents want for them.  I said he or she won’t say anything harming in the classroom. For those people have some or a lot of sensitivity.  Over time that teacher knows how ...

  Today I wished to tell you about several points I consider as paramount.  First, what the teacher does influences upon his or her students. Even I would say that that influences both if he or she does something in the classroom and even in their private life. We teachers transmit and pass on what we are. What we are, I insist on purpose.  So if a teacher is nice, kind, committed in her profession, respectful toward her students, growing as a person and as a professional, and quite some other good things, well, she will do a big good to those students.  Otherwise if that teacher carried out his job in a sloppy way, he would not attain and accomplish to teach well, and likely he would not educate his learners, the persons that have been entrusted to him by their families. That person could do a big bad to those persons. I retain the positive: if a teacher strives to do his job well, he will do a big good to a lot of people.  Another issue, connected with the pre...

  Once upon a time the subdirector or sub-principal of the school where I worked, and this happened more than twenty years ago, told me that of course I had to keep classroom management and discipline, but also I had to bear in mind that ultimately my students were free.  Free to act as they thought better, in that classroom, I add now.  And that made me think, it did. I was a novice teacher. Yes, they are free, as human beings they are.  Jutta Burggraf said that any authority problem starts from a problem of knowing how to order and ask to do, for example at a classroom.  If you want to be listened to and obeyed by your students, well, do not give a lot of orders. We have to insist on the essentials in the classroom, yet we should not give many orders. And leave liberty to act subsequently.  And leave our people to be free. And let them be free.  These ideas are partly by scholar Jutta Burggraf.  We have to leave our students to act as they think...

  On my previous post I told you that we teachers have to also educate our students for their future… and for the present alike. And we have to have them contemplate beauty. For example through texts.  And always in accordance with their parents and with human dignity.  Well, you know, if possible, we can have them read the classics, where we can find and encounter beauty. Plus other human values such as good, evil, love, virtues, generosity, sincerity and honesty, doing good to others, friendship, honorability, etcetera.  You know what? In principle I was going to have all my students read graded readers and other full version books, for instance classics, but for two of my groups I’m going to introduce an English coursebook, so what can I do to offer good reads?  Well, I have to check whether the coursebook contents are okay and in accordance to human dignity – otherwise I would have to offer other texts and not that coursebook. Anyway, I foresee that the text...

  We teachers may be spending some nice vacation, or otherwise we may be still working, or even we may be dreaming nice about next school year.  It may be a good moment anyway to put our profession in front of our eyes and try to improve our teaching job.  For example we may think that we don’t just teach but also educate those people for a happy future and a happy present now.  As well we have to educate people who will try hard to make happy to those other people our students will treat.  We definitely have to educate those people, but in accordance with their parents and in much way in accordance with human dignity.  For example we have to teach those students how to contemplate beauty.  Not only will we try to form people for the so demanding job market today, but we teachers are right there in the classroom to carry out something else, and that something else definitely is educating them.  I teach English to adults. And we deal with texts in ...

  Today I've learned the actual meaning of 'scolding'. And it means to correct and blame somebody angrily and noisily. And I have used that word to mean 'correct' on previous posts. We teachers can correct our students for their good, but I think that in no way should we scold them, for they have a great dignity as human beings. I have already written about this latter idea on previous posts. Have a nice day.   

  In this new school year we teachers would like our students would work well, would learn a lot, and would study fine too.  And since they are younger than us and we are in charge of teaching them, we have to teach them how to work that fine.  And they thus will learn how to have neat and useful class notes, and they will acquire and develop some like for the work carried out well and outfitted well.  For that goal tutoring sessions are crucial. At those times and in the classroom we may monitor their work: how to write down neat and useful notes, how to keep them in an orderly manner, how to record each day’s date at the beginning of each day’s notes, how to follow and study those notes, how to enhance those notes by consulting other books and websites.  If they utilize laptops or iPads for taking notes, same way we will teach them how to type those class notes.  For work well done is so educative.  And when they sit for studying those notes plus tha...

  The teacher. The teacher has to wish to make up a classroom atmosphere where the students – most of them may wish to learn and work – can find and encounter the ambience where they can actually learn and work.  That atmosphere is one where delicacy, culture, respect, civilization, working minds, can be encountered. The students thus are serene and peaceful to learn and work. They are thus treated with those delicacy and respect.  The teacher in the meanwhile manages to motivate his or her students. And these ones also want to get plunged into the topic they are dealing with in the classroom.  But if the teacher is harsh and covetous and he just tries to get a jail-like behavior-management, and he just shouts at his students… well, he will not make up that culture atmosphere where his students can learn and work peacefully .  These students are assisted to make up and take up virtues. That word comes from a Latin word,  vir, which means strength and fo...

  I have been teaching English since 1993 regularly. I like it, it’s a bit hard though. Well, what job is not a bit or very hard?  I like it.  And I can assure you that reading books is a booster of learning and acquiring a language. Not only reading is necessary though. Today I’ll say something about the four language skills.  As I just said, reading helps learning a lot. It’s my experience. And I guess I’ll be all the rest of my life learning and acquiring English. Sometimes I propose myself keeping learning German or French, but… I assume that rather I better keep learning English, together with my dear students. I might dedicate that precious time to English...  Reading is stupendous. Both fiction and non-fiction.  And for our learners reading is some aid to learn English.  I can recall that when teaching kids I sometimes used to bring a bundle of readers and books to the classroom. The students loved that. I used to deliver and distribute those re...