Experiences of a teacher of English

  Today I copy and paste a program I have designed for a friend of mine. He wants to learn English, so I propose him the following plan. Basically he wants to read English more fluently. I hope it may be of any interest for you my readers. There you can see what is my regular teaching like. Also he says English is an issue he has always wished to master and he has tried more often than not. He is retired, yet he often is very busy. Posible plan de inglés para NN 5 de abril de 2021 1.      Si lo que quiere es leer y entender más, y leer con más soltura, le puede servir utilizar un buen diccionario online, como wordreference.com. Es muy completo y útil. 2.      Si lo que quiere es mejorar en inglés globalmente, debe practicar las cuatro destrezas de la lengua: listening, speaking, reading, writing . 3.      Más gramática y vocabulario, si bien estos se pueden aprender al practicar esas cuatro habilidades o destrezas. 4. ...

We teachers are not supermen or superwomen. Anyway, we peacefully try and do our best, right?  That’s great from you, teachers. And people may be so grateful to you all, if you peacefully strive to do your best.  Today I was going to say something very human and humane. Briefly. At the starting of the lesson we can make warmers, to connect with our students.  Warmers are that activity that we implement at the beginning of the lesson to connect with our students and make them plunge into the lesson.  A couple days ago I realized, while teaching the first activity of an English one-to-one class with an old gentleman, that I had to precisely connect with him and make him rather think in English and speak in that language.  I had planned other activities but then I had to gain him in order to get him to speak in English. He’s an excellent student and learner. So we got to make some discussion, maybe from some activities, vocabulary and topic...

I was wondering that you may be fortunate if you can count on a textbook or an iPad or tablet with the corresponding textbooks. Why? Because you can follow it with your students in the classroom.  Textbooks today tentatively are something great and also a great help.  I have to make up my own materials, but I by no means protest for my situation. Why? Because my students are so great and collaborative, except for some exception.  As well you can count on teaching materials from TeacherLingo and that’s a great help too.  Some many years ago I had textbooks in the school where I was teaching. They were great too. My head teacher, however, used to tell me that textbooks were just some aid and not necessarily had I to follow it at the letter, at every step or exercise.  Now also I teach one-to-one classes and in those cases I follow an English-language textbook. And so I can see it provides texts and activities that pretty help my student. W...

I’ve returned from an English-language camp for boys. A summer camp. Also I’ve recently taught private tuition to a kid aged 17.  He had problems with his school subject of English. Okay then, as I was teaching him and giving him examples of sentences that appeal to him and meet his life and interests, that young man was finding more motivation at English.  I believe he’s finding his way to success and passing his school subject of English: he has found that English has to do with his life. He’s a great guy. / Photo from: ireland com

  Self-motivation is adequate for learning. Of course! Some geniuses, like Edison, Einstein and Steve Jobs weren’t motivated and good at regular learning at school. Otherwise they were motivated for the knowledge areas they showed they were so good... Also we teachers have to be careful and prone to discover the areas or skills our students are good at. And what can we do to help our students become motivated about the school subject we teach? Maybe we can make them work at the area or subject we teach and eventually they’ll become motivated, when they see they’re progressing. If our students are not motivated, we have to gently praise the small achievements they make, and little by little they will become motivated and happy at our school subject, math, science, English as a second or foreign language, religion, sports, grammar, history… I had a student, at private tuition, who was poor at that school subject (English), and over time, by praising his achievements, he...

  Personal and individual work by students hits the target. Homework is necessary. At home they can revise and review what has been learned at school, in case it is not a flipped classroom, for which you can find info at the tag of “flipped classroom” on the column at the right hand of this blog. However students might not be able to know how to deal with studying English, which is our common target language. And for us teachers: what to assign as homework, only exercises and translations from English into Spanish, our common mother language? At home or if they’re teens also maybe at a library they should re-read school texts for instance. Anyway homework should be also communicative, like school lessons themselves. Okay, the students should learn and practice grammar points but also use them for communication sake, into communicative activities, like writing an email they’ll read out at school on the following day, and much better if those students actually write an em...

  We teachers should make our students’ things like they were of ours: their joys and sorrows. Also because I have seen this incarnated in some grand teachers and educators. Because of that we have to learn how to carefully listen to them. Now I’m thinking of a student of mine, of last school year. I felt I had to listen to him – they were private tuition. I noticed he was talking about rather some trifles or unimportant things for classes themselves. However I had to listen to him, and his things were important for him, so as well they should be important for me too. I don’t mean we had to talk about nonsense stuff, so I had to change the conversation if I noted he wanted to just waste time of the class or the kind. I focus on that point anyway: his things should be mine as well, and thus I had to bear them in mind and take charge of them myself. I repeat it on purpose: I had to change the discourse if he wanted to lose class time. He is a smart kid anyway. By ...

  Today I publish again a previous post, which I consider as pretty critical and important mainly for free-lance English-language teachers, or other modern language teachers. Here you are: (it may be useful for any teacher anyway! I have included some minor changes) Both at private tuition and at group classes we English language teachers should expect and somehow demand a change on the working rhythm and mode of our students. For example private tuition should be like a health-care therapeutics – in some way. We teach our students how to work, how to learn, how to improve, and eventually and over time we ought to expect those changes, because they’re actually improving and we try each class be a step forward. We teach for instance how to face up a textbook type of exercises, and over time we must expect an amelioration and improvement at those exercises. / Photo from: learnenglish247 net. The picture merely is an illustration

  The private-tuition teacher should realize about his student’s problems at the school subject of English, if the case. When a few classes have been taught or held, the attentive teacher will learn what’s occurring to his student. Often the student doesn’t know how to face up with the textbook, and eventually and as a result he cannot make good use of his book for instance to learn grammar. He cannot study the grammar boxes, and the teacher will help him learn how to study them, and learn from them subsequently. The sentence examples the teacher will give him should be part of his student’s life and likes: a sentence with a meaningful content can get the student to realize that he can use that grammar for everyday life situations. His teacher will let him study on his own, little by little, so that the student can study and use his memory autonomously. Private tuition is like crutches: the student needs them to walk but his teacher will teach him to walk without ...

  If we want to teach a student at private tuition we should make friends with him. Definitely. Otherwise we won’t deepen into a solid human relationship with him, and our teaching will be superficial, and we won’t teach them how to study and work on their own. We teachers should listen a lot to our students, and talk with them. Also I’d say we should explain to them that they can count on us teachers. We are at their disposal totally. If we want for them to tell us about themselves, we have to talk a lot with them, and as I said listen to them too. Only in that way we will get to accomplish teaching them seriously. I repeat on purpose: we have to set clear that they can rely on us and count on us. That will build up confidence! / Photo from: www corwall gov uk. the picture is just an illustration