Experiences of a teacher of English

  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 ...

  Are you a foreign or second language teacher? If affirmative, let’s think of some points that may help you, both if you are a novice teacher or an experienced one. With experts’ help, of course, and what they put into teaching debates.  We language teachers ought to have the main goal for lessons as mastering that language, so we can foster activities which foster communication in that language, yet bearing in mind that those activities should have interesting contents, respectful toward our students’ ways of being and what their parents wish for them.  Now I want to focus on those language activities.  They should promote communication in the target language, thus we create an atmosphere in class where that tongue is the communication vehicle.  That said, like a web is created in class where the normal thing is communicating in, say, English – which is the tongue I teach.  Something essential is planning each and every lesson. And thus when planning a le...

  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...

  We have already started the new school year and some lessons may have been taught.  One of the most important points for a group-class and their teacher is there should be nice rapport amongst them. The teacher seriously has to be an authority reference in the classroom, and at the same time he or she will get their dear students in his or her pocket.  That teacher will seriously try and get them immersed into the lesson.  In order to achieve that, he has to address each student by his or her name, all with affection and interest, real interest in each one of them.  Out of the classroom he will talk with his students yet he will not be their buddy.  You accomplish all that by treating each student with respect, interest, affection, deference, seriousness. Affection with prudence plus without being a simple buddy to them.  And in a foreign language class he will try to get their learners plunged and immersed into English or whatsoever the target langu...

  So we may be starting a new school year. And thus the first and the second lessons are so important.  Let’s suppose we teach a second or foreign language. On the first and second classes I think we teachers have to set high standards.  Ok, and may we speak to our students in their mother tongue? Because we are giving them paramount information!  I’m personally talking to them first in Spanish, their and our mother language, then the same in English. Chunk by chunk, a piece of info after another piece, combining both tongues.  And over time I will – I hope – speak in the target language, some 90% of the class language, or even more. I am to use their mother tongue because also I have to help them get acquainted with a sound and good but complicate course-book.  Oh, you know, something quite important I have to bear in mind is that along the school year I have to have the main goal as to provide communication in class: a second language teacher must not con...

  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...

  And now I’m trying to say something which could hopefully help you out on your lessons, above all if you are a teacher. I’m telling you something from my classes to adults, yet same things could be said for teaching kids.  Ten points, ten.  I would say that for teaching English or any other language and, if possible, you the teacher ought to say all in that target language, or more than 90%. Well if everything is said in L2, much better. Even your announcements to your students, about logistics. The communication problem may be convenient for them to learn and acquire the foreign or second language.  Second, while talking to your students, look in their faces also for them to have eye-contact. That will help you reach them more fully with your messages and also that will help you keep the class tight – for classroom management and sere discipline.  Third, your messages to them have to be clear: speak in a finely or roughly tuned level, so that they can follow ...

  A new school year is beginning, and we teachers wish our dear students would learn a lot, don’t we? As you know I teach English to adults. And I want for my students to learn how to taste reading books. For reading is a language-learning booster indeed.  They will have to get graded readers, or full version books in some of the students’ cases. I can affirm for sure that by reading you learn English. Not only reading, of course. Yet reading gives you vocab and grammar and ways of saying things in English, and at the same time you enjoy even can relish learning that language.  You have to read many readers or full versions to grasp the language, yet each page read is a firm step forward.  As well my students will also have to read from websites whose link I will provide to them. Formerly I handed them out worksheets, but last school year with the online lessons I had them work on pages from websites, for example from the British Council – those guys are aces at teac...

  I am finishing the current school year. Or I should say, WE are finishing our school year, my dear students plus me. They’ve been great also this school year, and I’ve noticed their progress in the target language. They’ve paid off. Yes, they have.  They are adults.  Recently I have again understood that successful learners are the ones who really wish to learn and those really in need of learning that target language, like migrants that have to earn their lives in a foreign country.  In an English classroom there must be a real immersion in that tongue: communication is sustained and held in English, like the classroom were a piece of a foreign country.  I teach English as a foreign language, or perhaps I should say as a second language, for English is permeating people’s learning and studies, above all amongst young people. Indeed.  This finishing school year I have offered my dear students unabridged articles from the Web plus emails in English to info...

Many of us wish to learn a language, and we do need this one.  Well, we can read from H. D. Brown (1989) A Practical Guide to Language Learning. A Fifteen-Week Program of Strategies for Success . New York: McGraw-Hill.  I mean, we can turn to colleagues like him, and then learn a lot from them. I said “colleagues” but actually he is a master.  And if you read from that book you will learn that each learner has to find his or her own pathway to success, for each learner has his or her unique way to learn, one in which they come to feel well.  On this post I pick up some ideas from that book, about which I wrote a paper for a college journal some fourteen years ago.  The learner thus has to invest his best. Because learning and acquiring a second or foreign language demands the best from you. If you agree to put all the best, you for sure will attain and achieve to succeed.  Otherwise if the learner sits down in the classroom, in the language classroom, and t...

We second language teachers do wish our students would learn that language, right?  In my opinion the communicative approach is the best one to teach/learn a language. Even better we could follow a more eclectic approach, by taking from different language-learning methodologies.  If we want to follow a communicative method we have to create chances for real communication in the classroom.  As well we could try to implement activities where our students have to carry out diverse tasks. In those tasks the students have to use the second language in order to fulfill those aforesaid tasks.  In that way they can learn and acquire that tongue: They have the necessity of using the target tongue.  Thus they will see they are carrying on an activity which is worth to invest their best efforts in: They will feel they are doing worthy and meaningful exercises, and eventually they might get pretty motivated.  In other words: They will feel the ...

It’s their parents who have to educate their kids, okay. And their teacher has also to set an example. Okay too. An example like taking care of our planet. We teachers are instructing those students, in math, the second language, history, biology, minerology, other sciences, literature… And when we are teaching, while that is happening, also we are educating those young people. In accordance to their parents.  We should call up those parents to come to the school to have a meeting about their children.  Okay, well, any teaching action in the classroom, whatever the subject is, should set an example. We teachers are public persons, and thus we have to set that good example. Any teaching action should be educative. Any action in the classroom should provide teaching, promote an aptitude, promote some upright human value.  And it’s so because of the relationship between the teacher and the students in the classroom… or at any other place within the school area. ...

Teaching is great, as I’ve already said. Several times. I’ve said it several times. Ok.  When teaching a second or foreign language we teachers have to create the atmosphere of communication in the classroom, even at the school corridors and halls. Communication in the school, that’s it. And communication in that language we’re teaching.  But also we have to give our dear students language facts: vocabulary, grammar points, curious and interesting points about the language.  And we should carry out activities where our students have to interact with us their teachers and with other learners as well.  This morning I observed some of my students dialoguing in English at the beginning of the class. English is our common target language. They were talking about their yesterday’s experience at speaking with some American volunteers, young ones, who offer conversation sessions for my learners. These latter ones are adults, mostly retired people.  ...

I have met several teachers along my career as a teacher and have seen that an enthused teacher gets his students enthused over the school subject.  Those teachers plan and program their lessons. And if they’re second language teachers they achieve their students would use and utilize that language. Those teachers’ method may be communicative: the second language is employed as a vehicle for communication in the classroom.  Furthermore the classroom becomes a piece of a country where that tongue is spoken. I have seen it along my career as a teacher.  And if that teacher is not native of the second tongue, he strives to also learn and acquire it.  I knew a teacher with not much time left and he used to just learn one word or a few ones every day, every single day, with perseverance.  How to achieve the students would use the language? For example by means of jigsaw activities or puzzles where some students have an information gap to be fille...

In a lesson of a second or foreign language, like English in my case, communication in that language is paramount.  We teachers have to teach that language, but it is for utilizing it, also in the classroom. Otherwise our dear students will not learn and acquire it, or so slowly.  Nevertheless, if we have teens or adults as students, also we can sometimes focus on a grammar or lexis point. Yes, because those students are already capable of dealing with abstract points. And often when we focus on those abstract points we can arouse our students’ interest and eventually boost their learning the language.  Also because they, when learning the tongue, actually focus on those points and make up theories about them. That’s something I’ve noticed in my classes with adults.  Anyway, I insist on purpose: the main thing in a language lesson is communication, communication, communication. We teachers will not stop too much on teaching language facts, but will p...

We have to foster our students would learn the foreign or second language in a super-way. And that, inside an atmosphere of immersion in that language.  So we have to also give announcements for the daily logistics in that language. And perhaps and if necessary, we could also give them in the first language afterwards.  Nevertheless if we say those announcements in the L2 and they’re clear, let’s not repeat them in the L1...  And for that goal our dear students should acquire and learn massive vocabulary.  One way our students could get those words stuck in mind is by means of using and using and using those words. Unless they utilize those words, they cannot learn them or most of them.  For example they could write sentences with those words. Some days ago a student of one of my classes told me he really thought that writing sentences with that lexis is paramount to learn it.  Something else I do to learn and acquire words myse...

  We as foreign or second language teachers should get our students into immersion in that target language. Well, that said I would add that the level at which we speak in the classroom should be a bit above our students’ one or ones. Only in that way will they learn and acquire that tongue. So our level, the one we use in the classes should not be much above our students’ ones nor much lower those levels. Our students will thus acquire English or whatever tongue we teach. Acquiring is a not aware way of learning. Learning is the way they get the language in an aware way, by studying, reading, listening, etc. Acquisition, on the other hand, is subconscious. And can teens or adults also acquire a language? They can, indeed. One example of acquisition is when we are reading a book in the target language: we may be acquiring the language without being conscious of that fact. / Photo from: 30s cars theglobeandthemail com. If you compare 40s cars with 30s cars you can ...

  So we teachers must create immersion in the target language in the classroom. But I do use our common mother language too! With some of the groups! The ones with lower level of English (the target language). Am I doing wrong? Maybe the key thing is creating an atmosphere where English is widely used and the students are exposed to that marvelous tongue. THERE IS immersion in the target language, indeed. However I’m forced to use Spanish (L1) sometimes – otherwise there would be miscommunication. Besides, for my students to acquire English I have to provide ample input in English, and to clarify some point, some isolated one I might use L1. Do you colleagues agree with me? What do you think? Summing up: there will be immersion in English, though I might turn to Spanish to catapult communication in the classroom. Definitely I’m using Spanish rather little, and that seems okay, right? And all this only for the lower leveled classes. / Photo from: Tintin bedetheque ...

  I’ve already said that reading a novel may be good for learning and acquiring a second language, English for instance. Okay then. You also may know that visiting the country where that language is spoken is very suitable for learning and acquiring that language. When you are at that particular atmosphere, in that country, you may feel like motivated to learn that tongue, and our students too. Well then, when reading novels, or nonfiction as well, in some way it’s like travelling to that nice country. Also remember that in the classroom we teachers should make up a special atmosphere where that language, English for example, is the communication vehicle. That classroom then is like that country. And we teachers then are the output of English, the source of English. Oh, and remember to assign respectful readings adequate to kids! / Photo from: the new face of old Ireland. That country is an example of some place where you can travel to so as to learn and acquire Engli...

  I’ve told you all that I keep on learning English. Learning a language is life-long, I can assure you. Something I carry out for my own learning that language is reading for example a novel. In some way reading a novel in English and enjoying it is like being in a country where English is spoken. As well our foreign or second language classroom should be like a piece of those adorable countries where English is spoken, if that’s the language taught and learned. Think of it. We should create an atmosphere where English is the vehicle language for communication between the teacher and his students, and among these latter ones. So even if we have to give some announcement about logistics we should say it in that tongue we’re teaching and learning. If you think they didn’t understand, you can explain it in other words, with the help of the chalkboard or smartboard. Or have other students say the message in their own words in the target language! So try first in the ...