Experiences of a teacher of English

  Some people think kids at schools should have tutors, not only teachers. Tutors with whom the kids could talk, aside the classroom, at individual tutorial sessions.  I used to have this situation when I taught kids, before I began to teach English to adults, some sixteen years ago – I’ve been teaching English since 1993. I think that that thing of having a tutor is something good. Tutors chosen by the kids’ parents, though those ones may propose their opinion about who could their tutor be.  And at these tutorial sessions the kids and their tutors may hold nice and friendly conversations. I’ve seen it, and it works, it does. Usually boys had male teachers as tutors, while also the other way round.  For those sessions there should be confidence and familiarity, and that confidence is only gained by the adult tutor over time. You as a tutor cannot demand that confidence – you conquer it through actual interest and benevolence love. And affection. And when you know ho...

  I teach adults. English to adults. And they may be great, so great, and demanding.  I’ve also taught kids, and I’ve written a lot on classroom management. With adults the thing seems to be different, evidently. And if you teach this public, I’d like to point out something that also may help you if you teach teens for example.  I guess deference is a term that suits here, both adults and kids. When you get into the classroom, alongside when you encounter adults at the school halls and corridors, you must refill up your tank with a big amount of patience.  Yes, but all is smoothened if you love your students, if you become able to actually listen to them, with honest affection and attention.  I would tell you too: Don’t argue with them at all, don’t quarrel with them: all may be suited and solved in a nice and patient way. Just listen to them, and try and understand them, and their viewpoints, being in their shoes: perhaps they may be right, and you’ve got to ch...

  For those of you who are in the northern hemisphere I wish you teachers all a nice back to school.  Today I’d like to say something about classroom management. I do know how some teachers have to struggle to keep a working pace at high school, at the classroom. I’m typing something that might perhaps help you out, if Granada now earthquakes let me write – I mean, we are okay, just we’ve have ten days of some small earthquakes, a few bigger ones. My mind goes to Venezuela, Colombia, Perú and Indonesia and their people, and I keep praying for you all.  Well, I guess in class the main point is the teacher achieve to keep his or her students working, studying, learning. And a lot of you teachers already are attaining this, and you could tell us and share with us about that point.  I’ve already written a lot on classroom managing in this blog, and clear is it that you cannot be those young people’s buddy. You cannot enter the classroom and, so as to gain your students, ...

  I’m an English language teacher, as you well know. And you may be another language teacher. Even you may be learning English, like I am doing myself. Well, let’s suppose that that teacher ought to do his or her best for their dear students to learn that dear language.  That teacher ought to think how my students can learn best. And each lesson is – must be – a step forward as far as my students are learning English. How are they progressing, since I began to teach them? Do they already master English?  You know, you may rightfully tell me that it also depends – and much! – on them, and you are fully right – it’s them who have to learn, yet I can wonder how I can facilitate that process, that inner process, for each lesson needs to be a step forward.  What can I do for they really would learn English? You know, part of this job is transmitting and passing on the lure and the inner desire to learn English – the more enthusiasm you invest on the task, the more they wi...

  A teacher? He or she influences on their students more with their lives than with what they teach to do. Whatsoever they do, well, that is so influential on those kids, or those adults too, if the case.  That is like an eternal truth, one of those that occur all the time. It was taken from college teacher Jutta Burggraf, who lived 1952 through 2010, and which teacher has influenced on so many people. She was like special in some way, you know.  Also something that may inspire your students is the way you teach, whether you really know about the school subject and the way that that ought to be taught.  Something essential too, and which professor Jaime Nubiola states: you must love your students. With benevolence love: by seeking what’s good for them. Also by hearing and listening to them.  If you are a terrific teacher and you do like in Oliver Twist, bad way you’re going. Yes, remember: Oliver Twist gently asked for more porridge, and then something tremendou...

  Let’s see. I’d like to say some things which could help teachers develop their careers, and more focused I’d like to state something about classroom behavior management.  For example Claire English says that one of the main things we teachers can do to maintain order in class is to stay calm. You know, if the teacher is calm, well, more likely he or she will transmit that calm to their dear students.  If the teacher is but jumpy and agitated, more likely he or she will need more effort and struggle to keep order in class, and discipline.  I totally agree. And our dear students need but a peaceful atmosphere in class to work and learn and get to know our world. I have seen it, and I’m thinking of my colleague Pepe Asensio: when I was giving my first steps at this wonderful teaching career in his classroom to young kids, he did accomplish a so peaceful ambiance in class with a class of nearly thirty lions, I mean, kids.  And I said something about Claire English...

  Believe me, it’s something great to teach English to both kids and adults, and to help them learn and acquire it. It’s great, tiresome though. Well, which job is not something tiring?  We cannot, however, as teachers confine our work to just teach English, or any other language. We need to be aware that we are facilitating some people would talk to some others. There is the core point of the issue. We are connecting people with one another.  We have to bear in mind that our job is that great: one person communicates with another one. We teach English for practical purposes, communication in a word. And communication is something so human! And in class there must be that communication, between the teacher and the students, and among them all.  We do not confine to teaching language facts, although we have to also teach them. We are making up bridges among people. And that’s simply great. Isn’t it?  Thus let’s have in mind that we are treating human people, huma...

  I think that in nearly all classes of students we can find like three groups: high-achievers, average students, and low-achievers. And I believe we teachers have to help all those three groups.  When teaching kids quite many years ago I was said by the assistant principal or headmaster deputy I ought to give material and opportunities to high-achievers, so they would not feel bored.  I taught and teach English. Also low-achievers have to be aided. I as a teacher cannot confine to hand out their graded tests or exams to the kids in class, and then also give out a low-achiever’s sheet with a super low grade, and there you are! Something else must be carried out with those kids.  The superintendent or gamekeeper of the place where I live was a bad student, and his dad told me to please help him. Eventually he stopped and gave up studying, and, well, he is a great professional now as a gamekeeper.  Ok, let’s turn back to the topic. Those kids may present several d...

  We have agreed that you may be a foreign or second language teacher, and you may think that you have to foster communication in class, and not only grammar rules, though these latter ones are of importance anyway.  Well, the good teacher asks his or her students in class so there may arise a lot of communication. Ok, that seems the right way.  And that good teacher asks in some special way, let me explain.  He or she addresses those questions tactfully, bearing in mind he is addressing persons, with a lot of dignity, the one any person deserves. Any student is unique too.  He asks questions or anyway he prompts to create that communication, which is among persons.  In other words, that teacher does not confine himself to implement the textbook activities, yet he gives, with those questions, affection and benevolence love, seeking what is good for the students. Affection, yet with nothing posh or silly or ridiculous, but with prudence at the same time....

  I wish my students would learn and acquire English, and you also wish that from your students as a teacher.  You know, those learners must be willing to learn that language, no matter their age, yet above all if they are kids from some ten years of age – before that age they are pretty naturally willing to learn.  Of course they must be that willing if they’re teens or adults.  Only that way can they learn and acquire the foreign or second language. The more willing they are, the more language they’ll learn and acquire.  And learning and acquiring a language is not just attending some classes and just sitting there and just see what the teacher does. You don’t learn English that way at all. It entails your whole self. It’s not just sitting and listening to some audio. It’s not like learning math or history – and in no way do I despise those subjects. It’s what scholar and expert H. D. Brown used to say: you must involve your whole self: physical, emotional, me...

  If you know about teaching and learning another language, you may know that some experts have said that that teaching should be student-centered, right?  Yeah, I can see the point, but to achieve that, the classroom has to be also teacher-centered.  All of us teachers want our students would learn for example English, and to attain that goal, well, the teacher is a central piece in that classroom.  Most students who have gotten to learn and acquire that second or foreign language, well, mostly they have also had good teachers.  If we wish a number of learners in a schoolroom will learn a tongue, we have to get very good language teachers.  No good teachers, likely no good language learners.  Behind a good learner often is a good teacher.  Well you may also have a good student with a poor teacher, of course, but what I mean is that we have to invest on getting good teachers if we want those students will attain to learn English.  And that go...

  I’m back with you again, my fellow readers.  I wanted to tell you something that may be of any interest to you, both if you are prospective or novice teachers, or otherwise experienced ones.  I’ve been thinking lately that, for a teacher, practice and experience are so paramount important. And as well another key point to bear in mind when teaching in the classroom or remotely teaching is that we should have our students in mind when lesson planning.  Something you can do before the actual lesson planning is just to think on your specific and real students.  On a parallel way you may know that when our students have to write an essay, well, you know, they should have a reader in mind.  Equally when the teacher is about to plan a lesson – and every lesson ought to be planned – he or she may think, Well, let’s see how my students are in class and how last lesson worked actually.  And I invite you to write a few points before the actual planning, consid...

  We may be teachers, okay? We may also be educators. But do we know what to educate is? Well, maybe we already know it, or know something about it.  Where I want to aim? Educating is getting the best from my students, yet also it is getting the best to them.  Some people say kind of, Well, we have to get the best from those learners. Yep, but also we have to take knowledge and other things to them.  Otherwise we will not obtain the best from them.  This seems clear in children’s case: we can try and get the best from them, but alike we have to provide knowledge and others to them, because they were born with no knowledge at all.  Spanish philosopher and pedagogue Gregorio Luri puts it in that way: the teacher has to provide knowledge to their students.  It doesn’t seem sound to get some children into a classroom and naively try and get the best from them, like they already were wise people.  Let’s give them knowledge and other things. For that w...

  The teacher in a face-to-face or online classroom? He or she must be elegant. I mean they have to be tactful, respectful, loving toward their students. What I mean by loving is one with benevolence love, i.e. they will seek the best for their students.  For example, that teacher has to know how his or her students are at each moment, and whether they feel good with the activity he or she is carrying out before those students.  And this value is obtained through those affection and benevolence love, plus through experience at the classroom.  As well that teacher will try and be discreet, cautious and tactful. And he or she will say things that will not hurt their students.  Furthermore that teacher will seek what builds up their students’ personality, in accordance with what their parents want for them.  I said he or she won’t say anything harming in the classroom. For those people have some or a lot of sensitivity.  Over time that teacher knows how ...

  Planning our lessons is a paramount point about the teaching job, right?  Now I’m telling you about something else I carry out when I sit to plan a lesson, in case it may help you.  On my teaching pad or notebook I write down today’s date plus Stuff to do plus the class of students I’m going to plan for.  Then I think about a few points those students are in need of, like for example They tend to explain points in our discussions but they lack standard grammar to utilize , or something briefer, or for instance I guess we may be following the course-book in too slow a pace , or something else those people may need.  Thus I plan the lesson with my students in mind.  Or another point may be To foster the importance of homework for them .  In a few words, what I mean is that just before planning a lesson we have to think of our students’ needs and wants. And then let’s plan with the students in mind.  This pre-planning task takes few minutes, but it...

  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...

  Today I've learned the actual meaning of 'scolding'. And it means to correct and blame somebody angrily and noisily. And I have used that word to mean 'correct' on previous posts. We teachers can correct our students for their good, but I think that in no way should we scold them, for they have a great dignity as human beings. I have already written about this latter idea on previous posts. Have a nice day.   

  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...

  At last I’m back with you again, readers. And I’ve recently suffered from Covid-19, fortunately and thank God with minor symptoms. And I’m glad I’m back also with my dear students.  I'm reading and thinking and I was considering that an English language teacher like me has to think twofold. On the one hand he or she has to think that they are teaching a foreign or second language for people, for their students to communicate with other people.  And in the classroom those language teachers will try hard to establish and build up real communication in that atmosphere. And that will be created if that teacher tries hard also to empathize with each and every student he has in front of him. As well he has to be a good listener to what his students tell him.  He will detect whether his students are bone tired, or happy because of something specific that is occurring to them recently, or a bit disgusted with each other, or worried because of exams, or…  Teaching is s...

  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...