Experiences of a teacher of English

  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 ...

  Does the teacher have to give contents and knowledge to his or her students? Or otherwise he or she has to foster their students look for those contents and knowledge? Both.  However, that teacher has to give that information, those ideas, concepts, data, notions. They have to give contents and knowledge.  But their students will not be passive. It’s not like a half-robot which gives a lecture to an audience and that’s it. No. In the classroom, both face-to-face and remote, there will be a nice conversation, where the students may ask and comment on some points, with order and agreement.  The students are active in that classroom.  I teach English, as you must know. English as a foreign language, or English as a second language, and this latter case more and more in Spain, for more and more people speak English.  Now I teach online.  And I try to get a lot of conversation arise. I ask my dear students. Sometimes namely or nominatim , and many times I...

Lately and for my job as a teacher I’m reading a book by Spanish teacher, philosopher and pedagogue Gregorio Luri (born in 1955).  Before I continue writing, I would like also to say that young kids – complementing what I said on my previous post – can have some abstract ideas; for example they can think of love and other values and virtues.  Said that, I keep on writing about this post #3571. I’m learning a lot of things about teaching and learning from that educator.  Thus I’ve learned that we teachers would have to be watchful: we could be insisting too much on our kids should gain skills, yet they have also to learn contents: from their teachers and from their books.  By the way, they may learn from tablets and other technologic devices but paper books may help facilitate focusing on what they’re reading: paper books facilitate attention, above all if they have long texts, more than one page.  So skills are okay but students have to learn contents, both from...

I knew a teacher, a modest one but prone to improve his work day-after-day, who used to think before a regular work day, “Okay I’m going to school to work on English as a second language, together with my students.”  Instead of choking himself before a hard teaching day, he used to think he was going to work side by side with his students.  He was going to do his best at work, day after day. He thought not only that he was going to teach (of course!), but also to work with his students at English, with a content-based instruction (CBI), not talking about just trifles.  He liked teaching, yes he did, but preferred to think that he was going to pass on and transmit his like for that language to his students. He did so because he felt some straining and strength-draining effort at teaching.  He liked teaching but in some way that effort was superior to him and somehow overwhelmed him. He preferred to think that side by side he would work with his stude...

We teachers have to be careful: we may be too much over-focused on teaching strategies (this is, how to teach) and somehow forget to make our students think, ponder, reason, discern, meditate.  I mean, of course we have for example to teach a second or foreign language but our students also have to learn how to think.  As well we should teach them beauty – in a landscape, a poem, a piece of fine arts… – plus the fact that any person is unreachable and some mystery: any person is someone great.  As well we should train our students at speaking in public, solving problems as a team, holding a nice conversation, explaining some concept…  And before that, before all that, or at the same time, we teachers have to practice at thinking, reasoning, pondering, meditating… In few words: teaching is great and learning as well! We may be teaching our school subject, of course, but let’s remember to make our students think! / Photo from: commuter_reading

  What to do when you have to teach basic English to grown-ups? Because you may have to teach basic things and deal with basic vocabulary sets, and all that may be kind of childish, right? One option is to turn into their mother language and exploit those sets of lexis in a more adult-like way. But you may feel like you should say all in English, the target language... Well, we could ask them questions about those words, in a basic-format way. Also I can tell you that in my case my adult learners don’t feel lessons are childish. I’m referring to basic-English classes. It’s up to the sort of activities we implement. As well I could tell you that quite many of those students attend the following class, which is more advanced level, and in these latter lessons for example I hand out worksheets that contain deeper-content texts: stories I make up , articles on various topics, like history, inventions, science, psychology… Furthermore today many a textbook have inter...

  Many of us teachers believe that the communicative approach to teaching/learning a second or foreign language is okay, or among the best ones. But that way of teaching and learning is not confined to just conversation. Wait, wait, conversation is okay, and very necessary and a core point at that approach, but also we should give that way of teaching/learning both a functional and notional stroke too. And it isn’t very difficult. You can think of focusing on ways to express functions, like suggesting, discussing, pleading, etc., plus dealing with topics and their vocabulary: at a restaurant, talking among friends, at the airport, shopping, etc. Think of everyday situations your students will encounter. I insist on purpose: conversation anyway is pretty important for this way of teaching and learning, and if you achieve to have nice conversations in the classroom, that point solves the rub, up to some extent. So as to finish, our role in the classroom is not just ...

  We teachers have to educate our students about other countries and other continents. Also we teachers should pay attention to what’s happening in those maybe far countries. For example rich countries have to help poorer countries develop themselves. I had a friend that lived in a country of Africa, maybe Nigeria. He told me that those third-world countries had to develop by themselves, with the people they had at those countries. As well we should educate our students about a sound ecology: they have to learn to take care of our planet. If we take our students to excursions, and we should do it, we can teach them for example not to drop garbage around in the countryside: wrapping papers, cans, plastic bags… We’re educating future citizens. That friend of mine also told me that clever youngsters went to richer countries to study and many of them stayed in those richer countries of the first-world, after college. And those young people would be the ones that would p...

On post #3147 I wrote about beauty as something educative, and that’s okay. We have to teach our students to appreciate and esteem beauty, and also have to educate their sensitivity. That’s quite important. And we can achieve that goal by showing them beautiful sceneries, and taking them to excursions to the countryside, the mountain, the forest, a river… In that way we’ll be educating them with values that make us all more human and humane. As well little by little, for instance in the subject of history, or as a topic within the English-language subject, we can try to teach them how to value and understand some nude, other sculptures and paintings. In that case – nudes – we will explain to our students how well ancient Grecians esteemed beauty, and about the beauty canon they had and why they had it. Alike those people educated their boys and young men to follow what’s beautiful, and subsequently were able to distinguish between what’s good and what’s wicked to do. Girls ...

  Unemployment among young people is so big, in Spain as well as in other many countries, as you know. I don’t intend to be pessimistic and it is not my style, but that’s quite real. We have some danger of a generation of people who have never worked with a consistent job, is that so in your countries all over there in the Web? And there are quite many valuable people, potential teachers, who would do it well as teachers. I pray this would change, and at the same time we have to work well, be honest and upright, and we’ll be helping our western society, so much in need of many things. Let’s be honest and there will be more honest people, each one in his or her position in society. I get glad when I see people working on the street, or in offices, etc. They’re people who try to do things well and that holds our western society, in this global world where we live. So unemployment is a big problem, also because work makes men and women be mature and thorough people, ri...

  Today at the center where I teach grown-ups have had an interesting experience. We’ve been talking in English for an hour, from some worksheets a female student has provided to us, about healthcare for the old. Today there were only three students and they three were speaking in English rather fluently, I’d say. That’s great. We’ve discussed about how walking, brisk walking is so good for our health, when we start to become rather old. We also solved some small problems at talking in that language. The overall thing was great. In Spain more and more we are aware that mastering English is just essential, not only for getting a future job, but also for everyday conducting and relating with other people that live abroad or here in our country – we live in a globalized atmosphere, as you well know. Bilingual people or people with rather an advanced level of English are more agile and flexible regarding their minds and solving problems. It’s been a great thing: they three ...

  As I’ve advised you all, you could try and learn one or two or a few new words every day, if you’re a non-native second or foreign language teacher. In that way you can be piling and “rounding up” a vast vocabulary over time. Well, now I’d tell you that you could utilize that new word and it’ll get stuck in your memory by using it. How? For example by using that word or one of those words even in the lessons you teach: you can use that word in a sentence when you’ve got to give your students an example of something you’re teaching. Alike you can tell your students that was a word you’ve learned lately, and eventually that action could motivate your students to carry on learning English, because you’ve set a nice example and they can observe you may be somewhat excited with your new words. Your students will value and appreciate that struggle of yours, tentatively. You’re on the same learning pathway as them! You’re companions of “travel”. Dedicate not a long lesson ...

  Our students have to gain a communicative competence, otherwise they won’t be able to understand nor convey their ideas, thoughts and feelings. The foreign or second language learning process is paramount. And there, at that point, we teachers have to invest some great effort and commitment, right? Besides the culture vehicle is language, and if we want our students would learn and approach our culture, history and traditions, they should gain that communicative competence. As simple as that. We have to provide and give our students the tools for communicating and conveying messages. Because of that also CBI, content-based instruction, is also paramount: we teach the language with contents, with meaningful contents. I said we give our students the tools or language: let’s not forget the students are also the protagonists of their language learning process: the more they do the more they’ll gain that communicative competence. Learning but also acquiring the language ...

  I was thinking to tell you that the class contents should be meaningful and significant for our students. Oh, yes, you could say, but I’ve got scheduled stuff and a syllabus to cover and teach. Well, I would tell you, try the examples and contents of that verbal tense you’ve got to teach be meaningful and significant and relevant for the kids, this is, we should teach and give examples related to their persons as unique ones. For example I’ve got to teach present perfect of English. Well, okay, let's give them examples with their own proper names and things they have ever done and connected with their worries and growing-up process, even with stuff related to class concerns: exams and tests, safety in case of a terrorist attack inside the school, a fire in the school, their school subjects, their family relatives, going to McDonalds burger place for dinner, a day spent at the fun fair, their expectations for this school year, their future jobs, taking care of pets at ...

We teachers can teach our students how to get the most from studying, from their personal studying.  If they have got to study a History unit in English, the target language, first they could read for the gist.  Then they can read and study and get the most important points, and turn them into a summary or an outline.  After memorizing it they should read the whole unit or text so as to revise.  If they follow this scheme, they implement various learning strategies and they mature, also as persons. / Photo from: study hall www landmarkeast org

As I have written before my adult students and I work on worksheets about a story I make up, and usual and useful expressions.  For example we read out the worksheet, they read the story silently, they make up summaries of the story, they define words, they propose and give an end to the story, I ask them if the story is realistic and why, they describe photos from an illustrated magazine, etcetera.  These points describe my method, within a communicative approach and methodology.  Classes are in English.  The stories can be made up or/and from some novel or story I’ve ever read. / Photo from: esl-approach-student www readinghorizon com

Students have many school subjects to learn. And there’s a possible problem to learn those subjects as something too much separated to one another subject. This is, in other words, there’s a possible problem of a stressed specialization.  So teachers should study and form in Humanities. In that way they will be able to offer more common stuff: all subjects joined by a particular concept of person. / Photo from: mvreduction com

More and more frequently English textbooks, above all for teens, show beautiful photos and interesting texts: thrillers, history, countries costumes, curiosities, stories of personal interest, debate prompts…  It is sensible this fact be so, because teens can so encounter interesting stuff.  Some years ago the core point was language, and not those interesting texts for youngsters.  / Photo from: Poster - Casablanca www doctomacro com. I know that movie is old but I'd say the plot and the views still are attractive. starring this film were Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman; this latter one was from Sweden. I dedicate this post to Eugenio Olivares, for he's an ace in films 

Adult students can learn and even acquire English or other languages.  For kids English is one more school subject, and they now do not have the need of English.  Nonetheless we teachers of English can create that need: if our classes are of immersion into an atmosphere where English is the vehicle language, more likely they will need English, for example to solve a task or to respond a question from us. / Photo from: www jaum org

A learner of English is or must be open-minded to Anglo-Saxon culture, and to all the rest of cultures of those countries whose language is English.  Besides as well he should be open-minded to any culture. Just because he’s learning a foreign language. He’s in that way open to all cultures and considers himself a citizen of the world, and of his own country.  It seems sound to educate our students in these ideals. We as English language teachers ought to include something of this kind of education in the programs of the school subject of English, for example learning about history, traditions, ways of being, geography, folk-lore, music…  We did so in our degree of English Language Philology. / Photo from: www kathyngreeleydesigns com