Experiences of a teacher of English

  Are you a teacher yourself? I mean, a second or foreign language teacher?  I’m going to tell you something today which hopefully may help you with your lessons. Let’s see to it.  It’s common to say that we language teachers have to have our students practice the language they’re learning and we should not confine our teaching to teaching language facts. And that’s okay. We should not confine our teaching to grammar and little else.  Yep, that’s right. However, let us not think we cannot teach those grammar facts, like for example verbal tenses or the use of the comparative of irregular adjectives.  Thus, if I’m teaching a bit of grammar or lexis, I don’t have to think I’m doing something wrong. Come on, as well you have to give your dear students language facts and grammar and the like, because those students do need those facts… to be able to precisely communicate in the target language. And above all if they are adults or even teens.  They do need the l...

  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...

  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...

  On my previous post I told you that we teachers have to also educate our students for their future… and for the present alike. And we have to have them contemplate beauty. For example through texts.  And always in accordance with their parents and with human dignity.  Well, you know, if possible, we can have them read the classics, where we can find and encounter beauty. Plus other human values such as good, evil, love, virtues, generosity, sincerity and honesty, doing good to others, friendship, honorability, etcetera.  You know what? In principle I was going to have all my students read graded readers and other full version books, for instance classics, but for two of my groups I’m going to introduce an English coursebook, so what can I do to offer good reads?  Well, I have to check whether the coursebook contents are okay and in accordance to human dignity – otherwise I would have to offer other texts and not that coursebook. Anyway, I foresee that the text...

  You are the teacher? And want to teach a language effectively? I’m working on it myself.  These days I’m reading from great British expert Jeremy Harmer, and you know what? I’m finding out a couple of principles that may serve to teach in that effective way.  Namely I’m reading about language teaching methods. And I would highlight, as I said, two principles that I think they are at the basis of any success. They are: it’s the learner who has to really wish to learn a language, plus the teacher ought to foster in the classroom to lower the affective filter.  Among the methods I’m reading and studying about, those two principles come up as common in most of the methods.  You are the teacher, okay, well you should bear in mind that it is the student the one who should WISH to learn. If we achieve this learner would WISH to really learn a language, well we will accomplish success, believe me!  In those methods I’m reading about the student is so active at le...

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 ...

Learning English or any other language can be great. You can communicate with many other people.  You can learn that language and also you can acquire it. This is, you can learn it formally and by means of instruction at a school, and also you can acquire it by being not aware you are acquiring it, by means of reading and listening to it, at a level you can understand.  Infants acquire their mother tongue in an unaware way. Well, adults can also achieve it, according to Stephen Krashen and Henry Douglas Brown.  Okay then, this latter way of interiorizing the language seems better than formal learning, isn’t it?  Both, learning and acquiring, can be absolutely compatible. Furthermore, both ways can be complementary.  Actually, formal learning at a school can trigger and boost acquiring that tongue. They are not antagonist. They are not so at all. Also, because it’s my experience concerning learning English.  Something else I wanted t...

I have gotten a costume and habit: I usually thank my adult students at the end of each lesson. I do. I appreciate their contributions, their attention and their effort. They’re great, demanding though.  I owe them classes turn out fine.  As well positive motivation makes them even better learners. I try and reckon what they do well, which is a lot. Since our teaching method is communicative – teaching English as a second language – I usually focus on class communication, rather than grammar accuracy. Sometimes, even often, grammar is also important, anyways.  I insist on purpose: communication, communication, communication is the big thing in our lessons, and they – my students – are so communicative often. Good night, fellow readers.  We can praise our students, but not too much either. / Photo from: Colorín Colorado.

Non-native teachers that teach English for example – or another language – have to maintain that tongue alive and fresh. How? By reading books or e-books in that language plus listening to a radio station on the Internet.  As well a learner of a second or foreign language can learn and acquire it by reading and studying grammar books and the linguistics of that tongue. I have a nice experience about that point. And it has helped me a lot.  Also the learner can play with the language, read in it, stop to think about it, more reading and studying, reading carefully, being curious about points about English – or another language, etc.  Yet in the classroom I advise you to teach with a communicative approach and methodology. English is learned and acquired by communicating in that language. I also have a nice experience about that point: my students can communicate in English because they have spoken a lot in it. / Photo from: YouTube

  If the teacher has confidence in his method he will likely teach fine. Otherwise unless he trusts in his teaching way… more likely he will feel frustrated plus his teaching will not be efficient. In order to find a nice teaching method the teacher has to educate himself at teaching, by maybe studying at college and reading many a website and/or a book on teaching. This is what I’ve done and I can confess it helps me big! Let’s go back to that teacher. As a result of all that said also his students will likely learn quite much. And the teacher will pass on and transmit his enthusiasm about teaching in this or that way. Enthusiasm is something that is contagious, sooner or later. No enthusiasm, no nice teaching. Well, you may not feel enthusiasm right now but the overall teaching way will ‘infect’ your students positively. If the teacher trusts in his method he will teach with authority and enthusiasm, more often than not. This idea has been partially taken f...

  I just came across a definition of communicative approach to learning a foreign or second language that I think is just great: The communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language successfully comes through having to communicate real meaning. When learners are involved in real communication, their natural strategies for language acquisition will be used, and this will allow them to learn to use the language. It was taken from also great BBC website www.teachingenglish.org.uk

  I’ve already written about the “flipped classroom”, and you may know about that new interesting way of learning. Instead of the traditional way of teacher teaching and presenting the contents of classes, the students would get the information from the Internet, encyclopedias, books, surroundings and thereabouts, from people that know about the specific contents, etc. Is then the teacher an unimportant person? Not at all! The teacher could filter the information that is meaningful, really interesting and relevant. Also he would lead up the way to the convenient sources and would in some way help find the best contents for the unit or topic. The teacher keeps being of a paramount importance! He also provides a critical eye: he can tell about the relevance or not of some specific sources. The class is then a working group or team, together with their dear teacher. This latter one can set the student working teams or they all can discuss in the classroom how to make u...

  My classes with my adult students began today. And it was okay. I told them I’m going to teach them grammar also, which I will present in their and my own mother language, Spanish, as you may know. Why grammar, if my methodology is communicative? You may ask me. Well, they need grammar, because it is like the skeleton of language, so also it is okay with communication amongst us. Scholar Susana Pastor Cesteros convinced me that that presentation of grammar can mean a booster for later communication. I’m giving you an example. Okay, you can row in a boat, but if you have sails and can count on winds, much better, right? We may have communication, but if they can use grammar learning, they can advance faster. Grammar presentation is like winds: my students can go faster. Definitely I will present some grammar. As well some of my grown-ups demand rigor, and grammar can provide that rigor to our classes. This grammar presentation makes classes different from other p...

  We teachers teach our students, and we should present our school subject contents, okay. But remember also that we teach our dear students for them to learn how to learn: our students would learn how to learn, how to become autonomous learners, how to wish to learn! There’s a teaching methodology, which is called flipped classroom. You may have heard about it. Our students would search for the contents of our school subject – science, English, math, physical education, Christian roots of Western society, etc. – and also for the different topics or units of our syllabus. Okay then. The students, on the next step, would present their results before the rest of their classmates, and these ones would learn from them. However let’s remember we teachers, in my opinion, and I’ve been a teacher for a nice number of years, also should present topics ourselves, for example a grammar point, like the usage of present perfect in order to convey our experiences, in English, the t...

  We English or other language teachers have to take care about treating the school subject of English or other languages as something very practical in the classroom. We don’t teach facts about the foreign or second language but we teach how to communicate in those languages! The approach to the language will be communicative. With regard to a verbal tense for instance we would not present it as we would present “Life in Ancient Egypt” for example, but we could conduct at classes by following the next four steps, in order to teach how to use that verbal tense: 1) The students listen to examples of that tense said by the teacher. 2) The students repeat and answer questions by using that verbal tense, for example present perfect, to talk about experiences. 3) The students read out examples on the chalkboard. 4) They write and invent examples of the usage of that verbal tense, on their notebooks. Thus, we have some logical way of learning and acquiring present p...

  The center of a foreign or second language class cannot be the teacher himself, but rather the teacher PLUS the students. We English-language teachers for instance don’t “teach” classes, but classes are held where students learn and acquire the language. With the teacher’s help. Anyway the teacher also should present grammar points for example – what I mean is that the teacher also has to contribute to the class, even in a massive way, while also he helps his students learn and acquire the foreign language. English language classes should be ones where the students contribute a lot, and they participate a lot, prompted by the teacher and their classmates. I’m now thinking of the classes where I got the C2 level of English (proficiency): our teacher made us his adult students speak in English a lot; he achieved we would speak a lot in his classes (OUR classes). We had pretty interesting conversations in the classes, where for example each student wanted to give his...

  In many schools here in Granada they’re changing their methodology for teaching English into something more communicative, and more and more you can hear youngsters speaking in English on the street, above all with other American young people. Speaking in English is just essential, and I’m glad the thing is changing into mastering English. Many students train for B2 and C1 for example, which are levels within the Common European Framework. They’re equivalent to First Certificate of Cambridge and Advanced Certificate, also of Cambridge University. And I propose all should be said in English in our classes, both for senior adult students and kids alike. Or 99%, but if we let us ourselves speak a bit, a very small bit in Spanish, in the end you can catch yourself having spoken in the mother language more than what should be wanted. Anyway we’ve got to keep speaking in English to our students, but at a level they can understand, low it may be anyway. Or better, at a l...

  The point is learning and acquiring English, right? Yet also it was important to pass the exams and tests... When I taught in Jaén, north of Granada, where I now live, I included one question of previous past units in those tests, so if the kid passed the last unit test, he updated his pass level. This question of the tests was for example to write a meaningful sentence about their past, so they had to use a verb in past simple, which was something they should have learned previously. So it was some remedial work. I tried the question would be naturalistic and meaningful and practical for my dear students. The point, however, was to learn and acquire the language and not something confined to mathematically pass the grades (or marks). / Photo from: mrsnewswellsfourthgradeclassroom blogspot com

Our teaching English or a different language must be therapeutic: we teach, and we teach how to learn and how to acquire English. Each class is a therapeutic session with our dear students. / Photo from: medix webix tv

We teachers of English or other languages should make clear that our goal is assisting and helping students to learn and acquire English or other languages.  The aim and everyday practice should be for communication sake.  Therefore we could focus on that target. Our classes should be directed and pointed at the service of communication.  Different aspects of students’ learning as well should have that goal; aspects like learning a new vocabulary set. All or almost all the activities should be regarding communication. Communication between the teacher and the students and among these latter ones too. So joining people. / Photo from: segineslecturadomicilio www teleprensa com