Experiences of a teacher of English

  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...

  From here we thank Larry Whitted for his help in class these days. He’s a native speaker – from the USA and based here in Spain – and it seems he’s helping out great in class with my adult students. As well these ones are talking with him so they can practice their English, also out of class.  By the way today I wanted to write about the learning process, of anything you may be learning, math, a second language, history, chemistry … . Okay, when you are learning – and I’m also learning English – you have to take some risks. For example when learning to walk when you’re a toddler, well you’ve got to put one foot in the air to keep walking, and then when that foot is set then another foot in the air. And we’ll have progress.  Also when learning to ride a bicycle, you may fall and fall later on again, but in the end you are able to cycle too.  When learning English, you kind of have to take some risk to venture an expression you think you’ve learned. It’s nice, and we...

  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...

  I also know that most of you are or may be busy and committed teachers. I was wondering if write about this topic or not, but in the end I’ve decided to write about it, yes, let’s go with it.  As I said, you may be hectic teachers, yet I presume that you devote some time of your valuable and precious time to just thinking about what you do in class, so you can improve your teaching work, also precious as it is, indeed. Because you wish your dear students learn effectively.  I mean, the happy teacher – busy he or she may be though – knows how to extract some time for thinking about their dear students and how they can learn better and more effectively.  I knew a teacher who used to dedicate some time for example at the end of the school year to think and write down some points about his lessons: how they had proceeded, you know, how they’d improved that past year, how could they improve next year, what points are paramount for bettering those lessons, what points I ...

  One example of a lesson plan for the second or foreign language classroom? Ok, let’s go with it, for a lesson plan or part of it, by combining the four language skills, which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  Let me see. Ok, we have a text, one for our dear students, adequate to their English level – that language is the target one.  First I provoke my students’ attention by asking them, kind of, Now, do you know how we say such and such things in English? And I give them, one by one, sentences in Spanish for them to try hard to translate into L2 – English.  Then, I hand out some photocopies of the text or I send it via the Internet, to their laptops or iPads.  Then, they have some minutes, say, ten or fifteen, to read the text silently. While they’re doing so I can contemplate how they work – often it’s awesome, and I can circulate to solve doubts.  Then I read the text out for them to grasp word and sentence pronunciation.  Then, the...

  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...

  I can see you are so concerned about being a good teacher. Let’s see if I can help you out.  And you wish to really assist your students.  What about trying to improve your correcting your students?  Now I’m reading about correction and giving feedback to our dear students from great British expert Jeremy Harmer – he’s an expert on teaching languages.  The first premise is that our dear students do need feedback about how they have performed in the class, okay? And we want those people would learn and improve their work, okay?  The second premise is that positive motivation is a tremendous learning booster.  Yet also we have to correct what they did wrongly. Well I particularly give both positive points and negative ones when correcting their written essays, and also sometimes when the students have given an oral presentation about some topic. And they appreciate both positive and negative feedback.  As well there is a big difference when correc...

  Assessing and evaluating our students is something of a paramount importance. Is it not?  When I began my career as a teacher I one day set my first exam to my kids. It was a class of some 25 students. You know what? I can recall it as if it was today. Some 60% of them failed! And it was a regular class, not bad, not that bad.  One colleague of ours told me something like, “Even NN failed that exam!? It’s so weird, he’s a clever student! You may expect what his parents will say about that…!”  NN actually was a smart and clever student, and he could hardly fail an exam… I had set a test which could be paralleled to the ones someone could expect at college, but not at early high school! It was me who had “failed”.  Generally if at high school many, many students fail… from a regular class of kids… something about the teacher may be failing.  When a teacher sets a test, an exam, the first point he or she is going to test and examine is himself, herself....

It is convenient for us teachers to have some professional enthusiasm, even more at the beginning of a new academic year. Some, or a lot of enthusiasm.  Some of us teachers teach a foreign or second language, English in my case. Is it appropriate to teach grammar to our students? Or otherwise the good thing is communication in the classroom and grammar should be inferred by those people in and out of the classroom?  Communication is the goal of English language lessons, but grammar is necessary too. Grammar is like the language skeleton. We communicate with other people by using grammar patterns.  Well, sometimes it can be convenient for the students to infer the grammar themselves, from communication.  Yet grammar as presented to the learners can facilitate that communication, and facilitate things.  Sometimes the teacher can focus on some grammar problems the students frequently encounter.  For example the teacher can present grammar patterns the students...

You – we – teachers in a Covid-19 situation, when working and teaching remotely, wish our students would work with serenity, right?  I do know some of you, many of you, are doing this way. You have my admiration. Many an example are to be found in the USA, from what I learn from the Internet, and alike at Attendis, this latter teaching company, a large one, in southern Spain. Etcetera. All throughout our planet. Many other teachers are doing the same way, perhaps you my reader.  Today I wanted to say that positive motivation is a very positive way of reduplicating our dear students’ efforts.  I mean, we have to correct our students’ behavior and mistakes, and that is necessary, but let us not forget to reckon and recognize what our students do well. Their efforts, I mean.  I often – not always – say to my adult learners at the end of the lessons, when these ones are over, something like “Okay, thank you for your cooperation”. And it works. And my stu...

We teachers – we have a great profession! – have to correct our students, for we want to educate them for life, don’t we? Nevertheless also we have to reckon their work and let them know about what they do well and correctly! That counts for much and we will be boosting their learning!  I can assure you it’s so, it’s like that, I’ve seen it in my students and in other groups of people. Positive motivation, positive intrinsic motivation can multiply what they do correctly.  Furthermore that is a way of making them repeat what they do well. And they, our students, will do better what they already do well. And we’ll cover their error and mistake gaps.  It’s not flattering, silly adulating, it’s kind of recognizing and noticing what they do well.  We will not be all the time flattering our students. However, when they are doing something right, we can just say some “Yes…” so as to pull our students toward doing things correctly, and toward letting them c...

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.  ...

Every teacher, if he or she wants to be a pretty good one, has to learn how to delegate upon their students. Clear enough, let me tell you.  Well, we must know that they can do quite much on their own. For example they have to learn how to read and understand an activity or exercise they are addressed to resolve. We teachers could tell them how to make it… but that way they will not learn and progress.  That is not against often telling them and molding them how to solve those problems or activities, and quite often we’ll have to intervene, but if we do know they already have to make it on their own… let them do it themselves.  Also in that way we’re educating them and moreover they will feel we are willing to educate them: they expect we’re letting them learn and do their business.  At those times we’re spectators of their learning process.  We could help them but… no: let them work on their own, although they might do things rather wrong: ...

Something elegant from the teacher could be giving his students what took a big effort to seek and learn.  I knew a teacher that used to teach his students what he had sought for long and he did so in an easy way, for them to learn it clearly and easily.  That was nice and elegant solidarity and service toward his students.  I said some posts ago that both the teacher and the students should be attentive to seek and find truth. Truth concerning little things about the school subject and more profoundly to seek truth concerning human persons, which is something even philosophic. Happiness is at stake...  As well some more elegant attitude by the teacher is clarifying and rectifying when he realizes he was wrong about some point he had taught. He and his students seek truth, as I said.  So giving the students what he learned with great effort and clarifying in the classroom if he taught something wrong. Better anyway if the teacher does no...

Our students make errors and mistakes. Every learner makes them. Also we teachers do.  We have to be positive toward those errors and mistakes. They may be some evidence that they are learning. And they may take advantage of them… to keep on learning.  When returning tests to our students after correction we may correct them in the classroom, among all students and us teachers. On the board or chalkboard while they are checking on their test papers.  And remember that we teachers might fall in being too perfectionist, and that’s not good. Because we might be educating too perfectionist learners. And that’s not good, as you may guess.  Once a subdirector of the school I taught even told me that I might try to attract my students’ attention and try for them to focus on their work, of course, but those kids ultimately were free to do it.  We of course have to make our students focus on the work but trying they might focus because they will ...

  So yesterday I wrote to you something about determining some goals for our classes (I mean groups). Summarizing and insisting on purpose: When thinking of goals they should be few , and they should serve the purpose of helping me, who is the one that will refer back to those goals after having applied them and while applying them. It is not something just for the principal to learn, but they have to be useful to me! Intuition, after this school year: I do know what is good for my classes (groups). Plus I will NOT dedicate too much time to determining those goals, just the necessary one. Those goals must be practical!! I have just transcribed some notes about those meaningful, significant, and helpful goals. I hope this article be any useful to you, committed teachers and all others that drop by my blog! Sorry for my mistakes and errors while writing in English! / Photo from: passarello_la_crecida_del_rio_sena_paris_francia_el_24_de_enero_de_2018

  We as teachers should notice the mistakes and errors our students make when talking. Maybe we’ll write some quick notes while they’re speaking, for later correction. I can tell you that for I’m a foreign or second language teacher, namely English, and I must notice my students’ mistakes and errors, and then go over them to correct them. Then we can apply the PPP way of teaching a grammar form or pattern. PPP stands for Presentation of the grammar form by the teacher, then we have Practice and then Production of that form maybe into a communicative activity. So remember: let’s notice the grammar forms that our students do not use properly and accurately. / Photo from: Cambridge PET

  We have to be happy when we go to our daily work. Also while we’re carrying it out. Why so? Because we’re doing our best and fulfilling our duty the best way we know of. Unless we’re working fine and doing our best we have got to rectify and mend our fulfilling our duties. We have to be glad we can carry out our job. Plus we have the authority proper of the person who is accomplishing his obligations and duties. Thus our students will see we have some nice authority, proper of the person who, as I said, is doing his best. All that feeling will help us achieve our goals for that class we’re about to teach. So we have to give away any possible self-destructive thought that we are not fulfilling our nice and beautiful job as teachers. Yes, Fernando, but I have these or those problems at my job and…! Well try and do your best: any teacher that works that way should be peaceful: you try to work better and better and also look for improving yourself as a person alik...

  I can see we teachers are concerned about lesson planning, and that’s okay. I have also seen most of us are concerned about long-term goals and short-term goals. I’m trying to shed some light about this issue. We should have objectives and concerns about our classes, here I mean groups. Beside we plan each lesson we should have some orientation about what our dear students should attain in the following weeks, and that’s short-term or middle-term goals. It is kind of some view about what our students have to achieve, which is something we will not attain in a single lesson, but it demands more lessons. Those objectives or that single objective is something our students need to accomplish. For example I can plan next lesson goals, but also I reckon my students are in need of improving or attaining some longer-term goals, like for instance to give their presentations of a topic their choice. Another example, I can plan some activities for next lesson but also I ca...

  We teachers teach our students, willingly and with professionalism. But do we receive something from them? I think we do. We can learn how to be more human and humane when treating those kids or those grown-ups. I can tell you from my experience that treating people, treating singular persons, enriches a lot. While we’re treating our dear students – although sometimes they may make us suffer – we may be polishing our personality and manners and ways of leading a lesson. I think we teachers receive a lot from our students. As I am telling on recent posts, we teachers have to learn how to teach and treat people. And sometimes we’ll have got to rectify something we’ve done wrong to some person. Maybe we might have treated some student in a hard way, and perhaps we have got to rectify, maybe in public, to ask that student for his forgiving. Teaching can be one of the most enriching jobs we can think of, though every profession is so necessary, of course. One interesting...