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...

  For those of you who are in the northern hemisphere I wish you teachers all a nice back to school.  Today I’d like to say something about classroom management. I do know how some teachers have to struggle to keep a working pace at high school, at the classroom. I’m typing something that might perhaps help you out, if Granada now earthquakes let me write – I mean, we are okay, just we’ve have ten days of some small earthquakes, a few bigger ones. My mind goes to Venezuela, Colombia, Perú and Indonesia and their people, and I keep praying for you all.  Well, I guess in class the main point is the teacher achieve to keep his or her students working, studying, learning. And a lot of you teachers already are attaining this, and you could tell us and share with us about that point.  I’ve already written a lot on classroom managing in this blog, and clear is it that you cannot be those young people’s buddy. You cannot enter the classroom and, so as to gain your students, ...

  I’ve written a lot in this blog this far, I hope it may somehow help you teach your lessons. And I’ve also written a great deal on excellence, and we teachers – in principle – wish our lessons help our dear students.  But what if my classes are a disaster, or if some of them are so, or my students put me to the test all the time?  Today I’d like to say something on that. No one is perfect, and what teacher doesn’t have a bad day? Perhaps when you would wish to hit two kids’ heads to each other? I don’t recommend you to do that.  Not long ago – and I currently teach adults – I remember I had a bad day, one of those days when nothing in class seems to work well, or nearly so.  I’m now going to try and say something that hopefully might help out somebody else in our planet. Another teacher I mean.  And I want to point out that all good I have has been received and inherited from somebody else – it’s not my merit.  Some days ago, I was saying, in class I...

  I’m not quite sure but I guess that the school subject of English is in some spreading considered as a mess or a farce, especially among young students. Even more it can be considered as a snap, an easy A, a doss, you understand what I mean?  Perhaps it was like that in the past more than today, where you have to get a specific level, for example A2 through C2. And lately I’ve been teaching English to adults, so perhaps I have a previous perception.  Alike in quite many schools the English teacher, maybe a native one, was like a buddy for some students.  Well, you know, all that depends on the specific teacher: because that teacher can push toward excellence and he or she can teach with rigor. Perhaps also all that was because the teacher in class devotes quite much time to talking or nearly chatting with his or her students.  So for example math can be seen as a more serious subject, but English, where you can spend quite much time to just talking …  Wel...

  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...

  I teach English, as you well know. And I consider that a second or foreign language teacher, well, you know, he or she has to give clear instructions to their dear students, in that target language, or ninety-something percent in that tongue. In English for instance. And at a level a bit higher than their students’ one, or than their average level.  In that way it’s easier to manage classroom behavior. That teacher will try not to contradict himself, ok?  At the same time, however, he will have his dear students at freedom, he’ll get them free, for they are human beings who are learning how to deal with their own freedom.  Many years ago one member of the directive board of the school where I taught in Jaén, another town south of Spain, told me – before my will of managing the classroom behavior perfectly – that ultimately those kids were free, so let them a bit behave as they are, perhaps sometimes – often actually – they’re talking to each other to ask something ...

  I wish my students would learn and acquire English, and you also wish that from your students as a teacher.  You know, those learners must be willing to learn that language, no matter their age, yet above all if they are kids from some ten years of age – before that age they are pretty naturally willing to learn.  Of course they must be that willing if they’re teens or adults.  Only that way can they learn and acquire the foreign or second language. The more willing they are, the more language they’ll learn and acquire.  And learning and acquiring a language is not just attending some classes and just sitting there and just see what the teacher does. You don’t learn English that way at all. It entails your whole self. It’s not just sitting and listening to some audio. It’s not like learning math or history – and in no way do I despise those subjects. It’s what scholar and expert H. D. Brown used to say: you must involve your whole self: physical, emotional, me...

  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 ...

  We have already started the new school year and some lessons may have been taught.  One of the most important points for a group-class and their teacher is there should be nice rapport amongst them. The teacher seriously has to be an authority reference in the classroom, and at the same time he or she will get their dear students in his or her pocket.  That teacher will seriously try and get them immersed into the lesson.  In order to achieve that, he has to address each student by his or her name, all with affection and interest, real interest in each one of them.  Out of the classroom he will talk with his students yet he will not be their buddy.  You accomplish all that by treating each student with respect, interest, affection, deference, seriousness. Affection with prudence plus without being a simple buddy to them.  And in a foreign language class he will try to get their learners plunged and immersed into English or whatsoever the target langu...

  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...

  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.   

  We foreign or second language teachers may wish there should be peace and communication amongst people.  Also we try hard there should be communication and immersion in the target language in the classroom.  And I am a language learner myself, and I will always be a learner myself. And thus I can help my students learn that target language, namely English.  Something I do to learn more and more lexis or vocabulary is intensive reading books. Next lesson with my students I will show them the notebook where I register and keep the words I’m learning, in case that may help them out.  You know, it’s like a diary or journal. Some time in the evening every day I write down one or two… or five words, expressions or idioms I have learned today: words and terms that have attracted my attention, from the classes, or from the Internet, or from the book I’m reading now.  I write for example a sentence where a nice word showed up in the book I’m reading, maybe with so...

  Sorry for my silence these last days. Today I wanted to write about two points: classroom behavior management and lesson planning for English or any other language lessons.  I have already told you that I’m reading Jeremy Harmer’s The Practice of English Language Teaching , which is a major work and a must read if you teach English or other languages.  Recently I have read about problem behavior in the classroom. And the main point is that if you want to teach successfully, peacefully and serving your students, you have to engage them. If these ones are immersed in the class, you for sure will have fewer problems.  We teachers have to manage the classroom, but always having in mind that we have to respect our students: the problem is their behavior and attitude, not the person. We don’t go against the person.  And it’s practice and experience what will lead you to manage classes better and better.  When some problem arises in the classroom, well we could ...

  And now I’m trying to say something which could hopefully help you out on your lessons, above all if you are a teacher. I’m telling you something from my classes to adults, yet same things could be said for teaching kids.  Ten points, ten.  I would say that for teaching English or any other language and, if possible, you the teacher ought to say all in that target language, or more than 90%. Well if everything is said in L2, much better. Even your announcements to your students, about logistics. The communication problem may be convenient for them to learn and acquire the foreign or second language.  Second, while talking to your students, look in their faces also for them to have eye-contact. That will help you reach them more fully with your messages and also that will help you keep the class tight – for classroom management and sere discipline.  Third, your messages to them have to be clear: speak in a finely or roughly tuned level, so that they can follow ...

Everyone may agree that the teacher has to have his or her students think. Their students have so to think and think quite a lot. Lessons also have to be active. And the students have to be active, not only by doing things but also by thinking for a lot. Well, thinking, reading, studying, and doing exercises – it’s up to the specific subject.  When both the teacher and his or her students are engaged in an activity, either by doing something or by thinking, discipline is much easier.  The students are busy, focused and concentrated on carrying out something.  By the way, the teacher has to provide with knowledge and contents, but also some of those knowledge and contents may be gotten by the students’ work. The teacher has a primary mission in the classroom and in the virtual online lesson, but he or she has also to make their students think, discover, find out, research, deduce and induce, infer, draw conclusions, read, and study. Little by little, okay?  When all o...

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,...

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 t...

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 ...

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...