Experiences of a teacher of English

  I teach English to adults, but what I’m telling you today I guess it could be also applied to teens.  I just said I teach English, and it’s so, but also I ought to help my students learn that wonderful language. It’s thus because it’s them who ultimately have to learn English, or French, or …  More often now than before I tell my students that they have to be very active at learning English, as old H. D. Brown said (1989). Say, it’s them who have to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. We also in Spanish use that phrase, to pull your chestnuts out of the fire.  I’m not going to do it myself. Better said, I should not do it myself.  Sometimes when at the end of each lesson I assign some homework, I tell them they can do this and this but also they could do that, just if they wish to do. It’s them who have to feel what they need most, what they have to do to advance at learning English.  Moreover, about the graded readers or unabridged novels we read, wor...

  So the teacher has some authority in the classroom – even some moral authority, gotten through several factors, from dressing up correctly to his or her carrying out their profession in a right way.  Anyway, also this teacher must face the fact that also his or her students ought to have and drive some initiatives about their learning: no decision-making by them, no learning, or perhaps poor learning.  Something I implement with my adult students is I encourage them to work on the textbook on their own. We have two lessons a week, which, you know, is okay, but if they really wish to learn … then they ought to work on the coursebook by themselves, and actually they do so, and I note their progress over the years.  As well I tell them they’re going to learn a lot by reading books by themselves, the ones they choose.  Also if your students are kids, well, they also could work on the textbook – definitely it may be something good learners do. You can encourage the...

  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 ...

  We teachers have to manage classroom behavior, okay. But more important is to have our dear students to work and learn and study and read and … okay too. We have to keep an eye on our students to avoid they would be disruptive.  However, as well we have to trust and confide in them. It’s a balance, you know. Unless we trust them, we cannot educate them well, or maybe at all.  If we trust those young people, well, you know, they will grow into better persons. We need to be accomplices to them. They play in our team, so as to say.  In principle we will believe what they tell us: everyone deserves the right to be believed. It seems better we could be sometime deceived than not to trust them. Well, we must not be naïve. But let’s accept what they tell us. If one student lies to me, I will have to teach him how to say the truth, and why lies are no good. Remember we are educating them, and their parents have entrusted them to us to be raised in an honorable way.  W...

  Our students, kids or adults, need to be taught and educated in liberty. No free students, no growing up and developing in a right way.  Obviously you teacher may have set a few class rules at the school year beginning, and they are necessary, but you may have set not many of them, the necessary ones for working, learning, self-improving.  If you teacher are like a class cop or sergeant, and have your students caught in a stiff fist, when those students – for example kids – feel they are not under your eyes, well, they then could behave mischievously and do bad.  When I taught kids quite many years ago I was told by the school assistant principal that, ultimately, my students were free to do what they thought more appropriate. I had to have my students wish to learn and work, but ultimately they keep being free!  It’s like raising our children: we also have to educate them in freedom.  Otherwise if we do not have them face life and everyday happenings lit...

  We as teachers wish our students would learn, is that right? That’s the reason why we teach our dear students.  What about if also they would wish to really learn? Well, we may do a lot to make them autonomous learners.  We as teachers need to put their ball onto their roof, let me explain. I teach English, ok. And teach adults. I’m working out they would wish to really learn, and I can say a lot good about them.  Those students may not just attend lessons and that’s it, as if the teacher would be the main one interested in they would learn. If you actually want to learn a language, you may not confine your effort and struggle to just attend classes and do your best there, as though the teacher would be the one really interested in they would learn. You have to give your best as a learner, as a student. You have to invest your best in the struggle.  These ideas were already sated by great H. D. Brown (1989). I’ve already written about him on this very same blo...

  Do our dear students ever think? I gave that title to a previous post, remember?  And the point is that we as teachers have to teach our students to think, to engage their brains, to learn also how to study and learn.  They have to get the most from their textbook: thus we have to teach them to study.  As well we can elicit what they do for studying their textbook, so their classmates will learn new and sound ways to study, perhaps.  By the way, at many schools and in some countries they are starting to think that… it’s better for the students to have a paper book than a tablet.  Ok, let’s proceed.  We teachers also have to make them think: we oughtn’t to give all the stuff too much digestible: they have to learn to study and draw their own conclusions.  Something we may implement in class is to think with them. I mean, you know, the teacher can think aloud and so his or her dear students will see how to think.  Even something I do with my ...

  Today I’m trying to say something that may help you if you teach college students or adults or even kids.  Something I’ve lately observed is that the teacher has to let those students do, he or she has to allow them to do, by combining authority with indulgence, authority with clever lenience.  First premise: the teacher must become an authority, a moral authority in class. And that’s gotten if the teacher becomes somebody who can say things that positively influence upon his or her students. That teacher achieves that things fall on good soil, only if he works hard and sets an example of a person who has something that really makes his students learn how to work fine. I mean, that teacher is someone you can rely on, because he has gotten that authority, which is moral authority.  Do you know what I mean? I’ve seen teachers whose students do what they are told to do because their teacher is a moral authority and has prestige – he is somebody that deserves to be lis...

  So we have already finished another school year or are about to do it.  Do we teachers have into account that we have to also educate our students, and so in accordance with their parents’ views?  We also have to educate them in freedom. If we educate our students like they were robots… we are doing wrong with them.  I teach adults. Yet something similar in some way may be applied to teens. I believe that a lot of English may be learned by reading books – like Krashen himself puts it himself. And, you know?, I say to those learners of mine they have to purchase graded readers or unabridged books. On their own.  As well they have to massively and intensively read, on their own. Beside what we actually do in the classroom to learn English. On their own, I said, by themselves. I leave them on their own.  Something I do is I encourage them to read, and when they’ve finished that graded reader, then, come on, get a new one. Or an unabridged book, which for the...

  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...

  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...

  The teacher. The teacher has to wish to make up a classroom atmosphere where the students – most of them may wish to learn and work – can find and encounter the ambience where they can actually learn and work.  That atmosphere is one where delicacy, culture, respect, civilization, working minds, can be encountered. The students thus are serene and peaceful to learn and work. They are thus treated with those delicacy and respect.  The teacher in the meanwhile manages to motivate his or her students. And these ones also want to get plunged into the topic they are dealing with in the classroom.  But if the teacher is harsh and covetous and he just tries to get a jail-like behavior-management, and he just shouts at his students… well, he will not make up that culture atmosphere where his students can learn and work peacefully .  These students are assisted to make up and take up virtues. That word comes from a Latin word,  vir, which means strength and fo...

  I am a teacher. You already know it. I teach English to grownups. And I actually wish they would learn the language. And acquire it. I do.  Yet all my effort would be fruitless unless they my students also wish to learn and acquire it.  For that reason I give them articles from the Web, two of them about learning English. Next lesson I will insist on the following premises.  Who is the student, the learner who REALLY learns the tongue? The one who REALLY wishes to learn. Crystal clear, you know? I’ve seen it this school year. In my students, in some more than in some others. Anyway all of them have improved.  The learner that really learns is the autonomous one. That person pays off. That person will for sure apply all his strength to learning.  If I dedicate my best forces to teaching but somebody would not really wish to learn, my job would be useless or close to that. Well, you know, they my students want to learn. And they attend the lessons. And when...

As I’ve already told you, both teachers and parents wish our students would learn. Well, and most of students as well.  And these students need abundant time for studying. Just them. They should have some place and abundant time for studying, researching and writing their activities. Just themselves, as I just said.  I can recall with joy and gratitude when I was a student at high school and we the students did have a study hall or a library to study on our own. And we carried out and accomplished high school and after that, college.  Perhaps sometimes there might be a teacher or a monitor in charge of taking care of that study hall and he used to work on his own stuff, but also as I said, it is convenient students on their own would learn how to work, study and write their activities.  It is so because it’s them who have to realize they have to study on their own, just because they wish so, it’s them who have to learn how to work on their own.  When there were ...

I have written a lot on classroom behavior management. Angela Watson and Robyn Jackson also have and very interesting stuff indeed.  There should be rules in the classroom. Yes indeed. And we teachers have to distinguish between possible teenager disruption and disrespectful attitudes, which these later ones have always to be cut off in the classroom, with prudence and tact, without humiliating and shaming the kids. Concerning mere disruption, sometimes we have to cut off, some other times it is not essential.  These are some ideas you can find on Angela Watson’s blogs, namely on https://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/respond-rude-disrespectful-student-attitudes/   Yet and at the same time we have to educate our dear students on liberty. Why? Because man and woman ARE free persons. Basically and deeply so. And the student has to learn how to administer his or her liberty.  Once I was surprised because my school’s assistant principal told me ...

Now with remote teaching you teacher may be addressing each student, individually or otherwise by groups. Let’s hope the Covid-19 crisis be left behind and die out pretty soon. Thus I pray to God it would ensue in that way.  Face-to-face teaching may be the normal thing anyway in most of our cases as teachers. And we may have small classes or large ones.  What I intend to write today about is that it seems good to address and appeal to each student in a direct way.  We may have quite many students in the classroom but it seems sound to address each student. We don’t address a mass of students but we want to teach each individual.  Our students should not hide in a mass of people. We have otherwise to address each and every student.  In order to do that way we can sweep the class of learners and thus appeal to each student’s responsibility when speaking to them. That is the only way we will achieve to teach and educate each student.  As well we teachers sho...

In 10 days we will be starting an English summer camp for boys. Near Costa del Sol in southern Spain. A wonderful place and hopefully a wonderful camp.  Now I’m thinking of the first announcements and advice I’ll tell the thirty students that are to attend it. Who will be responsible of conduct and behavior? The kids themselves. I’ll be saying some things that could penetrate in their heads though they may be not very conscious the first day.  We teachers and monitors are sowing and planting seeds that will penetrate in them over time, maybe over years.  They have to have a pen plus a notebook or A4 sheets – also a dictionary is sensible to have. They must be punctual, which amounts to be respectful to other people, other human persons.  They will practice the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. They’ll have a wonderful chance to practice their English with a pair of native teachers: last year and other past years we had a...

We teachers in the north earth hemisphere may be at vacations. And we do need to rest and relax, don’t we? I’m after it, I’m resting and relaxing. But we may do other small jobs, like attending a summer camp for boys for a couple of weeks.  They will learn and practice their English with English native teachers. I’m making up some plan to help those kids. Something I must take into account is that they must learn some conducting rules, but ultimately they keep being free persons.  Freedom is a value I must take into account. Freedom has a pedagogic and educative value, yes it has. We monitors have to respect that liberty.  If those kids have freedom, they can likely let us monitors educate them, in accordance with what their parents wish for them. Only if the kids are free, they can better as persons. Because we teachers and monitors have to try to help them become better persons, and that’s what their parents and families wish for them.  Only if the...