Experiences of a teacher of English

  What does an English language teacher wish, really wish? That his or her students would learn English! One point for you, for you got it!  Like a couple of days ago I wrote down some notes, in Spanish, whose translation would be, “In order for his students to actually learn English they need to read a lot, and write a lot, and speak a lot.” And that’s it. The article is over.  Yet let me tell you more about that point, just in case it may help you out, if you’re a second or foreign language teacher, or otherwise a learner of that language.  You know, it’s my experience, and a lot of people’s one. Since I’m a teacher, I’ve had to speak a lot in class, for my students to input a lot of English, plus from the CDs, plus from their class peers, plus from our assistant teacher. And by practicing a lot, I’ve learned a lot, I mean, to speak -- and much more I’ve still got to learn!  And I’ve read massively and intensively, and I’ve written a lot of articles on this ve...

  On my last post I said that in a foreign or second language classroom our dear students should participate by speaking for quite long periods. It’s not the same to say one sentence than speaking for 5 or 10 minutes. And if we want for them to learn and acquire that language, well then they should give long oral presentations. And lose their natural fear to speak for those allotted minutes.  Expert teacher trainer Mary Jane Amaya taught me how our students can prepare that very oral presentation.  Basically and trying to remember I can describe the preparation process as follows.  First the student has got to choose his or her topic. They can do it by brainstorming possible topics and then choose their favorite one. Of course you can teach all that nice process by carrying it out in the classroom with the class of students as a whole.  So after that brainstorm they can vote or anyway select one topic.  Then they can again brainstorm possible points about t...

  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...

  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...

  Today I would tell you more about reading for learning English or any other language, and also about communication in the (remote) classroom.  Reading books and readers is a language-learning booster. Yes, sir, it is. I do it myself, and I’ve done so for many years. It gives you language: grammar, ways of saying things in the target language, lexis.  While I’m reading a science-fiction novel,  I read, yes, but also I study the language. I kind of devour the words, the phrases, the sentences, and much is retained in my memory.  And while speaking at the English lesson with my students, or while writing a new post for this blog, some expressions come up to that moment and I utilize them.  I study the language, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy reading, I do, yep.  Plus sometimes after reading a couple pages I go back and randomly revise some sentences or phrases or words, which thus get stuck in mind too. And afterward I can retrieve them when neces...

  Some of my students have lately improved a lot, and I notice it on our dear online lessons. I teach English as a foreign language. I teach grownups. And they are autonomous learners, so also when we finish the school year at the end of May I guess they will continue learning that marvelous language on their own.  An autonomous learner is the one who really and truly wishes to learn. If he or she is learning English, they will carry out a series of activities. Namely they practice the four language skills: listening, reading and writing.  Did I say four? I did. Well, one of them also practices speaking by replying to himself when doing exercises as if he was answering on the class to several people. Even I sometimes do it myself, when learning that language! It is not some crazy speaking alone, to myself!  For example some months ago I used to dedicate some daily minutes to a C1 English book. C1 is advanced but not the top, which is C2. And when the speaking activit...

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,...

Reading both fiction and non-fiction books may be so good to learn new vocabulary of the language you’re learning.  By reading you can learn quite many new words, but they need practice to get those words learned and memorized.  It is not necessary you look up every single new word in the dictionary. Only from time to time or when the meaning of the text cannot be understood by you. Enjoy reading! As well quite many words are not only learned but also acquired or gotten in an unaware way, and they pop up when writing or speaking in that language.  Over time you get the language sense: you have a nice background to guess and know intuitively some other language aspects. In that case you kind of feel the language: you know that native speakers say things in that way and not other. You have the language sense when you’re capable to understand (both by listening and by reading), speak and write in that tongue with enough fluency.  Only after some yea...

Why can some people speak in a second or foreign language with such accuracy and fluency?  If you want to have and possess such good things as accuracy and fluency, you should for example read massively in that L2.  Because we can use and employ some of the words that we input and intake by means of for example reading massively.  Reading what? Literature, non-fiction also is convenient, etc. Always those books should be in accordance to human dignity: we feed ourselves from what we read.  What amount of words can I use? Fewer than the words I intake, definitely.  The more words I intake through reading the more words I will be capable of using. Also we should consider that that reading books should take rather long in time.  Summing up: the more I read, the more words I will be capable of using. Have a nice day! / Photo from: Boeing 747

  Some weeks ago I watched a video in the Internet about the educative school company where I taught in Jaén, southern Spain, and I got stunned: I saw a girl aged 12 or 13 from the female school of the city plus a young man from the male school speaking in fluent English, and it was all amazing, like they were totally bilingual. As a matter of fact more and more students of that institution can do so, and in many other Spanish schools too: the overall thing in Spain is changing, and on the street you can hear more English than twenty years ago, definitely. When I taught at that male school I didn’t make immersion in English, but now I would do it: it’s the only way our students can learn the tongue and also acquire it. Acquiring a foreign or second language entails and implies unconscious gaining the language in a particular atmosphere where the students are exposed to that tongue. We teachers have to create immersion in the classroom: that room is a piece of an Engli...

Lessons with grown-ups are great! Besides those lessons enrich the teacher too and for a great deal, because the students have many things to tell you, also after the lesson or at recesses. And from the way they work they can teach you a lot. It’s my case now. As well those lessons take them somehow to their young age, when they were kids or young people, but now with a lot more of experience and a way of learning and acquiring which is nice, plus some learning strategies that make them some of the best students ever. Moreover those lessons, in themselves, make those people become more active intellectually and that makes for it. Those lessons encourage them and move their mood, and provide a taste of youth, when they were young. If they’re retired people those classes take them out of home and make them relate with other people. Adults may be some of the best students I’ve had. Still they can do many great things of course, and those lessons can help them do things for...

  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 a matter of fact we consider a person can use a foreign or second language if we learn that he or she can speak in that language; we focus on that language skill, which is one of the four skills of any language: listening, speaking, reading and writing; they four we should work on in our classes. / Photo from: Business English Power Speaking English Course 2 www embassyenglish com

Expert H. Douglas Brown advised those who are learning and acquiring any language that they should plunge into the water.  With this metaphor, he meant we any-language learners must be prone to speak in that language by taking any chance of speaking; we shouldn’t be afraid of using the language; we should use that language at any opportunity. / Photo from: times-square www telegraph co uk. this picture shows New York perhaps yesterday or the day before yesterday

Some people say that before an oral exam in English, or in other foreign languages it’s sound to read for a while in that language.  I was thinking for example of Cambridge Examinations of English: First Certificate, Advanced, Proficiency, but evidently this is valid for any kind of oral examination. I can assure you it’s true.  Also if you’re an English language teacher, and can get some time, it’s advisable before a class: you’ll feel more fluency.  Why is it so? We in Spanish say that “cambias el chip”, which means that your brain refreshes the language you know. / Photo from: www stripes com. climbing a mountain

At the camp I could observe most of the students, or at least a big number had a poor English speaking competence.  One specific point I scribbled a note about was Prepositions and their usage. / Photo from: www ejercitodelaire mde es. Again the picture is rather an illustration

At the summer English course of past posts the monitor that was like a bridge between the native teachers and the rest of the monitors, used to read in English regularly: this gave him fluency at speaking plus entering into immersion in English.  The rest of the monitors knew little English, except one monitor else. The camp ran other activities, apart from English. / Photo from: Summer_camp_tentsPM1 fmobserver com. this picture shows a different one than ours, whose venue was a school in the middle of the countryside

Sense of language.  When I say that phrase I’m referring to a special characteristic of people who have been learning and acquiring English for many years, and for example they can use a word they learned long ago, because it comes back to mind and is retrieved easily.  Their language level of English is high.  It is like another language skill or sub-skill that complements the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.  It is like another dimension.  People who have this capability are able to distinguish between two very similar meanings of two synonyms, but one is better at this moment than the other.  It is something interiorized, it is language in that person. He sometimes doesn’t remember whether he said something in English or in Spanish, his mother language.  It leads him to reach fluency at speaking and at writing. He has special manners concerning language, and he can adapt his English t...

Flipped classroom.  It’s a new discovery about how to learn.  First the students prepare the topic by researching about it, and then they present it in the classroom.  And after that the teacher assigns some homework, but to be carried out in the classroom. He sets something that can complement what the students have made.  How to do this in an English class, with a communicative methodology? Basically the same as with the other school subjects. Yet this can be done in a class with students of a rather high level of English, or the other language they’re learning: students who can speak for rather a long time, with some fluency.  Just try and see to it how it turns out. Ask the students what they think about this system. There are videos in YouTube, for discussion. / Photo from: teacher-students vw2kped org

This academic year my adult students have been capable to speak in English, this is, to communicate in English.  Next year I should have to polish their grammar. I will correct some errors and mistakes.  What I don’t know yet is if I’m teaching them grammar more systematically or not. Maybe I will teach them some basic and important grammar points, like past simple, for when they’re referring to yesterday or another point in the past. / Photo from: angeelforisgeal wordpress com