Experiences of a teacher of English

  We well may be finishing one more school year – if you are for example a committed teacher, like most of you are. And we want our dear students would learn a lot, as well as they would be happy.  I was wondering what an ideal teacher should be like. One of the main premises is he or she must be an authority in class. Are you one? Am I one? I guess an authority teacher is the one who achieves their students would actually learn.  I don’t mean those teachers ought to be like a sheer guard in front of a gang of convicts. So let me show you what I’ve seen in some classrooms, and which accounts for being a real authority.  You know, that teacher must treat his or her students in an exquisite way. I mean, they should respect those students in class – I’ve seen it and I’m now thinking of a teacher I had at high school who was an authentic authority – he treated his students – us! – in a tactful way – he never humiliated a kid at all in class. And when he met us out of the...

  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...

  I’ve been teaching English for quite many years now, you know. Something I’ve noticed is the following fact. When you ask your dear students questions as prompts, and speaking is one crucial skill to practice in class, and out of class, you may note something specific. By the way, we English teachers do ask a lot in class. A friend of mine – a head teacher himself – once told me that we are all the time asking questions, you know, and he meant that half-jokingly. Well, some students answer those questions. Most students do answer those questions. But some of them add something else, from themselves, so they facilitate real communication in class, and they say more things about the same point. And others, with a lower level maybe, may answer with something short and that’s all.  I mean, all of them are in favor of lessons and the teacher, but you notice there’re some learners who try something else. Usually those latter students work on their own, more than the students who j...

  It’s amazing. Or it may be so. Before we said that tablets and computers were welcome in our classrooms, and I’ve said something of the kind in this blog – up to some extent. And now more and more people, and experts, say that those devices may get our students distracted. Plus we should bring back utilizing printed books in class and at home. I plainly agree.  My grandfather used to say, when my siblings and I were starting a new school year, and we were using new books, new textbooks, that it was great to study with such books, and he was right! I can recall for example history textbooks – I did like them – and I liked to have a look at the different chapters or units, and foresee and anticipate what we were going to learn in some months, the French Revolution, or the industrial revolution, or whatever.  We ought to have our students study on such books, and thus get habits of studying in such books. It’s so paramount we’d better get our dear students acquire studying...

  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 ...

  I’m an English language teacher. And I consider that my dear students would speak in that language is the main goal, don’t you think so?  They often say sentences in class, if they are at a low level of mastering English. My higher-level ones intervene for longer and we hold nice discussions in class. Definitely I have to have them all of my students would contribute to the class for longer than mere sentences. I must have them speak for rather long.  Some years they have prepared oral presentations to speak for some minutes … or the whole lesson sometimes.  Definitely also it’s not the same to say just sentences than to have some conversations or some discussions.  Lately more than before this current school year I can observe that the textbooks we’re utilizing help out a lot.  By the way, I teach adults and when I ask them, well, I try and ask tactfully, because obviously they have their privacy.  Moreover if we wish we would have discussions in cl...

  Now I’m presenting what could be a first lesson, now that we are starting a new school year. I hope something from all this may help you out, whatever foreign or second language level you teach. In my case I teach English to adults from some false beginner to upper intermediate levels, namely from some A2 to C1.  All this may be even something beautiful, because we treat people, persons, and each and every one is unique, and we teachers may be influencing much on their lives: what a responsibility we have!  Something basic from this start lesson: we may address each student by looking into their eyes so they may feel they are and they are going to be treated like singular persons. That is something that has helped me a lot along my career as an English teacher, both kids and adults.  First I may introduce myself – on the running first days I will get to know their names; all this may vary in your case, obviously, depending on whom you teach; anyway I hope all this ...

  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...

  You may be a teacher, one of a second or foreign language. Well, that’s is a marvelous enterprise.  Now I wanted to draw some lines about what a good lesson could be, according to my experience plus others’ one.  Thus we can start the class with a warmer or warm-up activity. I ask my dear students about today’s date, and about the weather. Then, within that warmer, we practice saying sentences with such or such grammar structure, one we are practicing lately. Or they answer some questions by me. Or by them, to each other.  Then we work on the homework set on the previous lesson. Every day I set some homework, at the end of the class. And usually they’ll have to review what done in class – me giving examples of what and how they may revise at home.  And next we may work either on photocopies I hand out, or on the textbook we are working on.  Much weight should be given in class to speaking in the target language.  I plan each and every lesson, on a no...

  If I want to learn a language, well, I have to practice all four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  Okay. You may be a foreign or second language teacher, and may have a textbook or course-book to apply in class and even useful for your students to learn that language. And you may have for instance only two lessons per week and per class of students.  Definitely two classes a week is not enough to master that tongue.  You as a learner ought to put in six or seven days of the week to learn it, dedicating perhaps some minutes to that school subject. Well, better it’s to devote like half an hour or even more to that learning. At least some minutes.  With some of my students – they’re adults – we have such a textbook, yet I encourage them to read in English, for example a graded reader their choice; some of them can afford to read unabridged books.  Reading, reading is necessary.  It gives us the vocab and grammar we need...

  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...

  What are good lessons like? Let’s try and mull something about that question, from what Gregorio Luri states plus my own experience. He is a Spanish teacher, pedagogue, and philosopher.  Some teachers say classes must be fun.  Are you sure? Well, classes shouldn’t be a bore or drag, but fun at all? A bit fun may be okay.  They have to be well taught, for the teacher has planned them nice and competently. That’s the first premise. And planned with his or her students in mind.  And that teacher has to speak well, so his or her students put in and take in good language.  I think that if the teacher acts that way, more likely his lessons will be consistent and interesting. And the classroom atmosphere must be serene, so the students can work, learn, study, and grow up well and with no stridencies. That’s also applicable if your learners are adults, like in my case. In that environment those people can work intensely.  Thus over time that kind of work is ...

  We teachers have to learn from the experts. If we want to teach our dear students fine.  So Stephen Krashen – an expert on learning a second or foreign language himself – put his first theories in the seventies and eighties of last century. According to them we know that we can learn a language, ok, but – and it’s good news – as well we can acquire that dear language. Subconsciously.  We can acquire a language without being aware we are learning that tongue.  For that we have to receive comprehensible input in that language, for example by reading a fiction book we have selected ourselves, not necessarily an assigned class read.  Of course also we can learn that language: it’s when we study its grammar and such in an aware way we are learning.  And – if you let me say so – to produce that language (to speak and write) we can hand those both learned and acquired languages, which is what I note I do when I speak or write in English – which is not my mother ...

  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...

  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...

  Both a novice teacher and an experienced one as well must know that it’s the active student the one that really learns, for example a second or a foreign language. I have seen it in our school.  Students should not confine themselves to solely and superficially fulfill what their teacher sets as homework for example.  Successful language learners are the ones who actually wish to learn.  Otherwise they could pass the school subject of for instance English, yet they would not actually learn and acquire that language.  They do not confine to merely attend the language lessons and see what their teacher will say in class: they attend the lessons with the desire and will of getting the most of each lesson. And they will do more than the sole set homework.  They are autonomous learners.  And they work on the course-book on their own and not only on the set activities for homework. Even they access the Internet in search for videos – really useful ones – w...

  Teaching a second or a foreign language may be fantastic. And somehow hard.  That teacher has to be alert: he should teach language facts… but mainly he ought to foster communication in English or whatsoever the target language is.  Thus he may ask his students questions as prompts for further communication in the classroom.  Asking questions also by other students may be great – I have seen it in class this week. A female student asked another female student how this latter one managed at home if she only cooked simple meals. They have an intermediate level and we utilize a coursebook which is A2/B1 level – some lower intermediate grade. The question was absolutely spontaneous.  That questioning each other also can further the communication in the classroom.  Another point, look. It is not the same our students would convey just sentences or otherwise they would convey oral presentations of a few minutes or even longer, of course.  They can choose a...

  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...