Experiences of a teacher of English

  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...

  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...

  Are you a foreign or second language teacher? If affirmative, let’s think of some points that may help you, both if you are a novice teacher or an experienced one. With experts’ help, of course, and what they put into teaching debates.  We language teachers ought to have the main goal for lessons as mastering that language, so we can foster activities which foster communication in that language, yet bearing in mind that those activities should have interesting contents, respectful toward our students’ ways of being and what their parents wish for them.  Now I want to focus on those language activities.  They should promote communication in the target language, thus we create an atmosphere in class where that tongue is the communication vehicle.  That said, like a web is created in class where the normal thing is communicating in, say, English – which is the tongue I teach.  Something essential is planning each and every lesson. And thus when planning a le...

  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...

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...

Reading comics and the like.  Some years ago – we had the school subject of English five days out of five – one day every term (?), I used to bring a collection of readers, comics, books, to the classroom. It was an expected day.  I delivered each reader or book to my students from a class-group, according to their level of English – they were mixed-ability classes. Obviously I knew my students’ level of English.  The point was as I said to deliver readings to each kid. It was the reading day, though we didn’t call it so. It was a day when each kid could read whatever they liked and picked from my desk.  I did not control too much – I let them read whatsoever they asked for or as I said they picked a booklet from my desk.  And they did read, believe me.  Suspiciously some student had finished a thin reader so fast, but I cared little that special day. / Photo from: books simonandschuster com

When teaching in Jaén, south of Spain, I used to dedicate one day each term more or less, to the students reading abridged books, with many illustrations.  I carried a pile of readers and other books in English to the classroom, with a student helping me to carry the books.  The point was for the kids to take a reader or book that they liked to read.  Some other times I delivered the readers and books according to the level of English of each student. The experience was awesome: they read a lot in those special classes. The readers and other books were very varied. / Photo from: shkolazhizni ru

I've just opened a drawer of a console of a small lounge we have at home: there were comics from when we were little kids.  How well they made us enjoy evening times or other times.  More likely a kid that reads when he is little yet he will become a reader or a heavy reader when he's an adult. Even studying from textbooks is better and more useful and usual.  Asterix, Tintin, El capitán trueno, Mafalda, TBO, La familia Ulises, Mortadelo y Filemón, Zipi y Zape, Roberto Alcázar y Pedrín, El guerrero del antifaz, Jabato, Lucky Luke, Los inventos de TBO, Joyas literarias juveniles...