Experiences of a teacher of English

  You know what? A couple of days ago I came across a new class of students I have to teach English to. They are adults, with a big wish to learn that language.  I had planned to convey the same messages both in English and in Spanish, their – our – mother tongue. I came to the classroom with enthusiasm, prone to serve those great people.  And you know what I encountered? They are beginners and false beginners! Great students though.  My assistant teacher was with me – he is learning how to teach English and is a native speaker himself, from San Diego, California. Ok, they knew nothing or close to.  I had brought photocopies for them, taken from a textbook of A2/B1 level, this is, low beginner to lower intermediate – more A2 than B1, because that copy was from the very first unit.  But my dear students needed I had to explain and present absolutely every detail from basic questions, you know, present simple with Do and Does, and similar basic stuff. Oh, man...

  So you have heard me that we teachers ought to plan our lessons, so they may really help our students learn a lot of things in class and at home with homework.  Today I wanted to share some things with you online, things that might perhaps help you plan your lessons effectively and in a rather short time.  If you teach a second or foreign language, you could start the lesson with a warm-up set of questions to those students, like for example asking them today’s date, having some discussion about the weather, and practicing some grammar patterns they’re learning or any stuff about lately lessons. That may be a nice occasion to communicate with your dear students in the target language, with authentic communication, and by using the vocab and grammar you’re dealing with.  Then in class you may carry out activities where the four language skills are combined: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Or otherwise if you utilize a text- or a course-book, well those bo...

  We do need flexible teachers. Flexibility may be a good characteristic of a good teacher. In no way do I mean you don’t have to be a constant teacher, plus a committed one. The point is that we teachers treat people, treat persons.  Last post I told you what could be a possible lesson for the first day lesson of a new school year. Namely, it’s what I’ve planned for my first lessons at the three centers where I teach English to adults.  But also I consider that that very first day something else may pop up in class and I’ve got to change the lesson planning. And nothing wrong and serious may then happen.  The good teacher has to be flexible, I have to be so, if I wish to teach my students well. If we dealt with screws, well, then we would have to make all of them the same. But we treat people. Fortunately.  When teaching kids twenty-something years ago I tried hard to follow the lesson planning, but I was told that sometime we could skip and spare a lesson, and...

  We may be about to start a new school year, at least at the north earth hemisphere. And you may be a hectic teacher. And you have to plan that school year by following the premises given by the school plus the points perhaps the school does not demand from you but you think they are important for your daily teaching.  That is what I’m doing. And maybe you’re a committed teacher who wants to get hold of every problem that might turn up in your pathway and your students’ one. Ok, great.  All the same I would tell you not to specify every mishap which could pop up during that school year. Even more if you tend to be a perfectionist teacher.  You will face any trouble when it occurs. Even you may have some transcendent view of life and may trust in God and his loving providence. Do not get everything tied and super tied up. Also because we may not know the students we’ll have soon.  Each and every one of them is unique and can provide their richness to the lessons...

  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...

  I’m back with you again, my fellow readers.  I wanted to tell you something that may be of any interest to you, both if you are prospective or novice teachers, or otherwise experienced ones.  I’ve been thinking lately that, for a teacher, practice and experience are so paramount important. And as well another key point to bear in mind when teaching in the classroom or remotely teaching is that we should have our students in mind when lesson planning.  Something you can do before the actual lesson planning is just to think on your specific and real students.  On a parallel way you may know that when our students have to write an essay, well, you know, they should have a reader in mind.  Equally when the teacher is about to plan a lesson – and every lesson ought to be planned – he or she may think, Well, let’s see how my students are in class and how last lesson worked actually.  And I invite you to write a few points before the actual planning, consid...

  I wrote a few days ago the following.  One more year has begun. And today I’m going to let you know about something I lately do when lesson planning, in case it may help you out.  I teach English to adults. And when I start to plan a new lesson, I wonder, Okay, what should I do to really help my students learn that language? Because each and every class should be one step forward in their learning and acquiring English.  Secondly I also could wonder, Okay, what can I do next class to make my students become autonomous learners? For those autonomous learners are the ones that actually accomplish to learn English.  Thus we have two points for when we have to plan a lesson.  Now I’m trying to give you some examples of those two points, which we can bear in mind to improve our lesson planning. Well, they have to be brief, each one could take few minutes to think about.  Some examples, I was saying. Let me think. Even I’m trying to give an example that co...

  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...

  Working as a teacher? Wonderful it may be.  Today I wanted to tell you that a teacher needs resources for his or her teaching, for example a coursebook. And perhaps some others.  Yet we must bear in mind that the main resource, say, is the teacher him or herself. And we must take care of them. For they, as I said, constitute and make up the main source for lessons.  And it’s him or herself who have to invest their best in class. Which is something quite common amongst teachers, although they have to fight against many negative factors, like bad classroom behavior from their students, or some parents who seem to be against those teachers. On another post we could say something about that latter point – now I will simply say that quite many other parents are totally in favor of the teachers.  You know, being a teacher is kind of a hard profession and anyone of us can see how they strive to do their best.  If we have happy and committed teachers, likely less...

  You as a teacher want for your students to learn and work a lot? So do I.  Now I can tell you something that works with us. I teach English as a foreign language. And in class we carry out diverse and varied activities, so the thing turns out as something interesting. All I can tell you about is something I owe to others.  As well I try to give some doses of pushing my students upward in their learning process, in class and outside.  For example I write something as a group or class email I address to all of them, and there I insist on some points, like set and assign some homework, I let them know what is working better lately in class, etcetera.  I address those emails to them as blind copies, so their email contacts keep protected.  As well some of those doses are directed to foster learning in them, to arouse their learning. For example I tell them about some learning strategies they can use to learn English, and which ones are taken from my own learn...

  Every job on earth seems to have a relational nature: we do things that may help and serve others. A teacher’s work is relational as well. Obviously.  And what can we say about working as a team, as a teacher team?  Some weeks ago I read somewhere that creative work is primarily something of a single spirit, so we are creative when working alone, yet here I’m going to say something about working as a team of teachers. Also when we work as a group we may be creative.  First premise is that that teacher who is going to work together with other teachers has to be open to the others: open-minded, open to respect others, open to love others with benevolence love, which is seeking what is good for those others.  All this is brought together with smiling at those others plus being nice and kind and cooperative. If I work in a team, I have to listen to them so I try to see from their viewpoints as well. And I will try to provide my best to that working team.  Eve...

  I am again with you all. And enjoying teaching my students. Adults. And one year ago we began online lessons, English lessons. Now this school year classes are face-to-face again. And my students are great people. Yes, they are. And very willing to learn English.  We have gotten some nice rapport in the classroom.  From the teacher’s angle, experience is showing it is paramount. With experience you get the right way to treat your students. In a nice way. With experience you learn how to treat them, what they can like and what they don’t. You learn how to treat them in a nice way.  For example at the end of a lesson often I let them know what has worked fine in that class, kind of, Well today we have had some nice discussions and like a get-together to talk about this, about that, you have my congrats, people . And thanks for your cooperation to the class . And, you know, they like that and also they thank you for the lesson. And then we say good-bye in a cheerful w...

  Lesson planning takes quite a lot of a teacher’s time. If you teach a language, you may have had the following experience.  A foreign or second language teacher, I think, should foster speaking in the class. A lot of speaking. In that language.  Thus that teacher should plan activities which will make his or her students speak. And not only will that teacher make his or her students participate by uttering and conveying sentences, yet he or she ought to take their students give longer messages, for it is not the same to say a sentence than talking for five or ten minutes. There is a big difference indeed, and our dear students should speak for pretty long periods.  With creativity, imagination, practice and even a bit of fantasy the language teacher should plan his or her classes, so as to give their learners chances to speak.  Well also the other three skills: listening, reading and writing.  Yesterday during the lesson I was teaching I came to think tha...

  For teachers it is important to assess and evaluate their students’ learning, right? Also his or her own teaching, right?  In the first case, how can we assist students who have to retake an exam and catch up on the materials they missed?  Well, let me see. They are students in need of extra work, extra learning, extra studying. We could split the class up into two groups: special objectives – during the regular classes – for those who passed the exam but still can learn new things or deepen into what learned. And also objectives for those students who failed.  Even the students who passed could help out their classmates by monitoring them.  This is it: they could sit with their peers and teach them.  And thus we have that some students are assisting their peers, and that counts as something very educative and formative: helping others.  As well in that case we teachers might assign some extra grading to those students who have been helping their cla...

  We may be on vacations now… or not. Anyway, we teachers may be preparing ourselves for the new school year next fall.  Classes, classes, classes, we also may miss our students, although we appreciate this summer break, in the north hemisphere.  And we have to learn how to motivate our students.  Well, better said, mostly they get motivated in the lesson if we know how to plunge them into the pool, if we know how to get them fully involved in the lesson.  On the one hand we have to show the relationship between what we teach and real life. But as well we teachers have to arouse the interest for new material and new stuff if we achieve to get them immersed into the lesson.  I mean, we have to teach new things to our dear students, and consequently and eventually they will get motivated about that new stuff. Also if they work hard. Some people say we have to meet our students’ interests, but also they will get interested in new things when we teach them thus...

At least in the north hemisphere of our world we in schools are more or less near another end of another school year. Perhaps we teach remotely or face-to-face, or we may be combining both in a hybrid way. We may be tired. But we have to keep the rhythm.  Now I would like to give you some tips for lesson planning. When doing that, I would tell you first to think of a few goals, with our dear students in mind – they may be adorable people although they may give us a lot of work to do and to manage their behavior.  So let’s think of a few goals, like the main points about those specific students and what they are in want of now. I just said few but this morning I thought of… seven aims or goals for a single lesson.  Anyway, if we think of more goals we will find ourselves with nearly already thought activities to implement during the lesson: more goals thought of, more activities already thought of.  Now what? I’d say that when thinking of those aims or goals, we shoul...

If we teachers want our students would have success at learning and would actually learn, we can help them out by telling them to study in a metacognitive way.  But what does that mean?  Basically it’s helping them think. Basically also it’s for example a student who thinks of the way he or she reads, studies and learns.  The good student does normally know he or she is a good one. He can reflect about the way he or she reads and studies. And they discard what doesn’t work and take up what works. They also use learning strategies. And they are more or less mature.  And we teachers can teach them or help them read and study. Of course we have to teach and address all our students, from low-achievers to high-achievers.  We teachers supposedly do know how to read and study. Because we have reached to be teachers. So we can teach our dear students how to read and study. On last posts I’ve also talked about reading techniques.  As well a good student can come to...

This job of ours, teachers, is so great, you know? It’s hard, sometimes tough, but what job is not hard?  We as teachers have to personalize the education we implement. In accordance to and with the kids’ parents, ok? Because the school is a prolongation of the families’ homes, ok?  Thus we teachers should teach, educate, and love those kids, with benevolence love, which is seeking what is good for those persons we’re educating and teaching.  Thus also we will be recipient to what those students tell us. Aside and individually.  In the classroom or by remote teaching we are the adults they have as a reference… so what a responsibility we have!  We will listen to them carefully and attentively by… how should I say in English? In Spanish we say “hacerse cargo”. I would explain it: yes, here we are: listen to them, empathize with them, reckon what they’re telling us, bear in mind what they’re saying, realize about what they have in mind and in their hearts. With pr...

Two posts ago I told you that we adults have a lot of positive features in our favor to learn a second or foreign language, and we do have indeed!  Also lately I’m commenting on H. D. Brown (1989). You can peek at the last posts from this blog. From that great book now I’m quoting something else about the way we grownups learn that language. Here you are, “It’s not ridiculous, is it, that adults are potentially superior to children in foreign language learning? If we could only harness that ability! Research on successful language learners shows that a significant portion of adult success is attributable to optimal conscious learning. You need to be just childlike enough to relax with the language and not be overly worried about all of its details. But at the right moment, you need to be able to monitor yourself or your language with your zoom lens, then take corrective action. In short, try not to think too much about your language learning process, but allow yourself optimal o...

Do you need to learn a language? I do. English. I’m working on it.  Now I can help you by giving more advice from the scholar we’re treating about on our last posts, H. D. Brown, who is an ace at learning and teaching languages.  So now we could think that children, young ones, infants actually, have a lot of facility to learn a language, right? But if we are adults… So what? Adults have a great potential to learn and grab a language.  Our author puts, “(S)hould you, like a kid, try to pick up language subconsciously? The answer is a qualified yes. As an adult now, you most likely analyze yourself too much. Your tendency is to memorize, focus on grammar rules, translate from one language to the other, and do just about everything except subconsciously acquire it. You’re probably learning facts about the language at the expense of learning to use it. And one sure way to fail at learning a foreign language is not to use it for genuine communication.” (page 21 from the book...