Experiences of a teacher of English

  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 is a person who faces up to different issues. And he or she does with great love. They may have – likely – problems with some students or some parents, and all that may make them suffer, but ultimately they positively – as I said – face up to those troubles with some positive spirit and morale.  As well they can notice that perhaps something weird may be happening in the classroom lately and their students may be suffering from some other trouble, and those teachers I’m talking about face up to that situation, with no procrastination.  And they, those teachers I mean, do not let time elapse any longer and try hard to solve the problems, better if they can count on their colleagues or the school department head.  Serenity is necessary for those teachers: they may be suffering from some trouble but they’ve learned how to deal with problems and they have fortitude and courage.  Their students seek support upon them as their fortitude when dire...

It seems sensible teaching and directing a school would be with collegiality. I mean, two or more people can see more than a single one, and all of us sometimes need to contrast our view of a problem with other people’s ones.  You know, two or three people can see more than me myself.  Also we could compare and contrast our teaching ways with other people’s ones, inside the same school department.  All this is an art, which cannot be improvised, but we need to learn it over time. We need to listen to others, maybe sometimes change our mind, share views with others, to count on other people and the best from them.  I can assure you all this has helped me over years, so I can propose it to you fellow teachers.  Finally we need to accept that other people sometimes can have better views than us ourselves.  Even some other times we need to listen to our students – well, better said, we have to be always prone to listen to our studen...

  We’ve seen that teaching and being a teacher are great. Also it’s so because we’re educating our students. Or better said, helping their parents at that very important point: the education of their children. Whatever we do influences on our students. And we have the duty of setting some honorable example. So we’ll have to better ourselves day after day, and that entails struggle to overcome our flaws and defects. One aspect to better as teachers and persons is treating problems with professionalism. Also we tentatively can count on our colleagues and principals’ advice and help. Alike we saw that we can count on our Father God’s help. Carrying out our beautiful work demands professionalism. All this kind and nice struggle influences quite much upon our students. In other words by conducting in that way we are educating our students. I’m finishing: Although we are so busy teachers we should find and dedicate time for talking with their parents. Have a nice da...

  We teachers have to learn to work as a team. It is necessary, just necessary. Collegiality is an art that we have to learn. It means we must work also as a team, taking the other teachers into account. Beginning with our colleagues that work at the same department, for example foreign languages, which is my case. Collegiality is an art that must be learned. You do not improvise working as a team: it is something you learn over time and together with your colleagues. It comprises learning to listen to the others, maybe changing our mind about some viewpoint if necessary, sharing opinions and viewpoints, counting on the best each teacher can pose and propose. It’s wonderful to be able to count on other teachers. When I started to work as a teacher (1993) my department head and some other few teachers monitored my learning to teach. It’s marvelous to have other teachers you can lean against. / Photo from: BBC. London Bridge. To build something great it is not en...

  If you’re a head teacher or have other teachers under you and you know there’s a mess and misbehavior continually at another teacher’s classroom, you shouldn’t interrupt and butt in his lesson so as to pacify the students. Why? Because he will for sure lose authority. We may think we’re doing well and helping that teacher with problems but ultimately we’re making him lose his authority. We as head or experienced teachers should help that teacher with problems but in a different way. It may be more difficult to teach a teacher to exert his authority than learning oneself to have that authority. So let’s talk with him and pass on our experience to him. And let’s remember that that teacher may be suffering from that misbehavior. Ultimately that teacher has to learn by himself how to exert his authority, because it is something you learn on your own. As a friend of mine, another teacher said, the first year of your career as a teacher you suffer a lot, the second year...

  I usually write about what we teachers can do in the classroom, and that seems okay, right? But we should also consider we are not alone before our nice hard-though work. We can count on other colleagues and companions. I do know there can be teachers who hinder and trip up other colleagues, but as well I know we can count on others for fulfilling our nice work. Also we often can count on the department head. I could tell you about when I was starting my career as a teacher: I could count on the teacher head, the principal, one foreign language coordinator we had, some colleagues with more experience: had I listened to them more carefully, I would have improved much better. Alike we always can count on the Other, on God himself. I could also tell you about this point, only if my experience were not so personal and interior. With our companions and with God we can reach farther. Remember we are not alone at school. We can count on our comrades. Hopefully! We together...

  Oh, you know, it turned out maybe too serious but I mean it: We teachers are not alone in our daily struggle to teach our students. Among other reasons we can count on the Other, God, and his only beloved Son Jesus Christ. We call this latter the Master, the Teacher, and He’s true God and true man. He can help us. Well you know, I thought it be right to tell about this point. We aren’t alone and I could tell you fine things about their help. I wish you all a nice break at summer, if you’re at the north hemisphere of the earth. You all need resting and relaxing. Yesterday I taught my last lesson of the winter season and now I focus on this nice summer. For instance I’ll be assisting at a summer English camp July 18 through 31. I’ll be the link or bridge between the monitor staff and the brilliant English-language native teachers. By the way and before I forget it: what I wrote about turning to Jesus Christ for help may look too serious a thing or kinda that, like I s...

  Our students have great potentialities, most of them, a vast majority of them! If you’re a principal or a head teacher also you should learn that your colleagues have big potentialities too! We’ve got to discover and find them! If we trust in people – students or teachers – and we give them responsibilities and some chances of having initiatives, they usually respond well, and they will take up those tasks, those assigned tasks. As if they were something of their own. And they’ll embody that common project. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in many many cases along my career as a teacher. It’s something great. Both if the students are teens or grown-ups. We teachers will have to encourage our students and explain things well to them. Of course we can encounter cases when kids don’t seem to be on our side, but when we treat them aside, one by one, they react well. What I mean is that people, persons have great potentialities and capabilities. Sometimes they won’t meet our...

  I’ve told you a lot about class management and discipline. Okay then, I would add that the teacher can have and should have a moral authority, with seriousness and gravity, young you may be though. You are the person you are, but as the time passes, you’re gaining gravity and seriousness, with all your work done and carried out throughout the years of your career as a teacher. In other words, let’s see, it’s kind of a charisma. And all that force is felt around you in the classroom. You may think you don’t have all that moral authority, but don’t worry too much: as I said you may be gaining it along years: carry out your everyday work the best you can, working with your students and having them working, and at the same time appreciating and esteeming them, and all that gravity will be gained, from the very first career years. Its source is your seriousness at work. All that seriousness is transmitted to your students, even if you smile, because it’ll be a clever and...

  A teacher should know how to work within a team of teachers. I’ve written a lot about many topics, right? But also we should consider our personal work as inside a group. We are parts of a group, and we should adapt our work to being part of that team. For example we should listen to the department head, but also we should listen to the other team members, our colleagues. And I guess we should be attentive to what they do and the way they do it. And even have the first-class human category of learning from them too. And this albeit we can be more veterans than that teacher. And also we should be attentive to the way they are and the mood they are today: Did you notice his face and his look today? He must have (or may have) a personal problem: I could offer myself to him, in case he may be in need of anything. His face today is not nice, something may be going on with him, and I should cover his concerns: his teaching today concerns me too! And also just because I’m ...

  The teacher, the good teacher must learn how to work in a team of teachers. He must be open to other minds and viewpoints. It’s something essential at school. Essential to build up a common project. He must be open-minded and easily able to follow his head’s directions. He’ll be easy to hold a conversation with his workmates and colleagues. He should be easy to listen to those people, those persons. He also should translate and adapt his class conducting to his head’s directions, as I said. And at the same time be creative in order to be versatile, to adapt his labor to his students’ needs and expectations alike. And easy to build a nice rapport with his workmates all. And learn from his own failures, as well as from his colleagues’ experiences. This is the basic general scheme, I’d say. You could add other stuff from your own experience! / Photo from: chicago-skyline www greencurtainevents com. the picture is just an awesome illustration

  The teacher’s first priority is the teacher’s himself (!). How about learning a new word for example, per day, unless your language is English – and you are an English language teacher. I'd say the same for other school subjects: we must be updated in some way... The teacher is the main “resource” for the class. The more he's motivated the better. The more he works for his students, the better too. So if we are department heads we should take care of the other teachers themselves, as a first premise. He, the department head, should be concerned about his colleagues’ labor. And guide and lead his fellows. Where to? Toward Excellence: one at labor as teachers and one at our students’ learning. If the teachers work fine, the students will learn and acquire and improve their English, or French, or German, or… If you aren’t a department head all this advice is suitable to you too: all of us teachers have to learn how to work as a team, taking advantage of other t...

We teachers of languages have to learn and re-learn how to work as a team.  You’re a busy teacher, I know it. Our work as teachers can be valuable, and that’s okay.  Now let’s think that the more we teach as a teacher team, the better. We are pieces of the whole school project. Also a project of the languages department of our school.  We’re a project as a team. In a school teachers should work as a team. And this implies and entails communication amongst us. / Photo from: football www olbg com. think of a soccer team: the game depends on each player, and each player as a portion of the team

On most of the posts from this blog I’ve written about teacher’s conducting.  However let’s remember that my conducting influences on the team of teachers of English.  I’ve got to work taking into account that I’m a member of a team. I’m not alone. First of all is I’ll be nice and kind with my colleagues, and ask them about things we know they’re concerned.  Another fact that involves other teachers is the line of contents I have to teach with my colleagues also involved on that line. With other words, I will teach bearing in mind what teachers of previous grades teach, as well as what teachers of subsequent grades to mine teach. 

Yesterday August 31 I received an email from my coordinator summoning us teachers of English to have a short meeting to basically prepare and plan the academic year we start today.  I can assure you I’m longing for the starting this year.  Yesterday too I thought of various points to bring up at the meeting. All for our dear adult students! Actual classes will start soon I hope! / Photo from: p22 meeting Rox-Harvey Finkle thenotebook org

It seems sound and sensible to positively motivate the teacher, if you are for example a department head. It has a multiplying effect.  So tell him how well he’s doing his job. Also remember to ask him or her what he or she is doing in classes. / Photo from: what-makes-a-greatteacher www slideshare net

Obedience isn’t something just from the past.  We teachers have to fulfill the rules and criteria of our heads of department.  It’s the way a school works. Plus our initiatives, of course.  I would say that if there’s something we think otherwise, we can always tell the department head about our criteria or thoughts, with trust and peace.  All of us are pulling the cart toward the same direction, aren’t we?  All this stuff isn’t naive: it’s the way I’ve seen schools work well: all people in the same direction and with good manners and affection to one another. / Photo from: Second-Grade-Data-MeetingInside azednews com

The best teachers is a positive value, ok, but if the school has modern technologies, that's much better.  Good teachers tentatively are like good wines: they improve with the time passing: so experience is a value too.  The last point I would mention is the best teacher be very concerned and sanely worried with each and every student, to get and extract and train the best from the student. / Photo from: www uclm es

What is the best school?  The school with the best teachers, not the one with most modern technologies. The main source and resource of a school are its teachers.  In training and coaching them better is the secret of the best school.  Plus the teachers’ commitment. This latter one can be natural; this is, because the teachers are aces, or because the teachers make prayer to God, plus their effort: no effort, no good results. / Photo from: schools_innovate_to_supply_STEM_teachers www teachhub com