Experiences of a teacher of English

  I’ve written a lot in this blog this far, I hope it may somehow help you teach your lessons. And I’ve also written a great deal on excellence, and we teachers – in principle – wish our lessons help our dear students.  But what if my classes are a disaster, or if some of them are so, or my students put me to the test all the time?  Today I’d like to say something on that. No one is perfect, and what teacher doesn’t have a bad day? Perhaps when you would wish to hit two kids’ heads to each other? I don’t recommend you to do that.  Not long ago – and I currently teach adults – I remember I had a bad day, one of those days when nothing in class seems to work well, or nearly so.  I’m now going to try and say something that hopefully might help out somebody else in our planet. Another teacher I mean.  And I want to point out that all good I have has been received and inherited from somebody else – it’s not my merit.  Some days ago, I was saying, in class I...

  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 ...

  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...

  We may be on vacations now… or not. Anyway, we teachers may be preparing ourselves for the new school year next fall.  Classes, classes, classes, we also may miss our students, although we appreciate this summer break, in the north hemisphere.  And we have to learn how to motivate our students.  Well, better said, mostly they get motivated in the lesson if we know how to plunge them into the pool, if we know how to get them fully involved in the lesson.  On the one hand we have to show the relationship between what we teach and real life. But as well we teachers have to arouse the interest for new material and new stuff if we achieve to get them immersed into the lesson.  I mean, we have to teach new things to our dear students, and consequently and eventually they will get motivated about that new stuff. Also if they work hard. Some people say we have to meet our students’ interests, but also they will get interested in new things when we teach them thus...

You – we – teachers in a Covid-19 situation, when working and teaching remotely, wish our students would work with serenity, right?  I do know some of you, many of you, are doing this way. You have my admiration. Many an example are to be found in the USA, from what I learn from the Internet, and alike at Attendis, this latter teaching company, a large one, in southern Spain. Etcetera. All throughout our planet. Many other teachers are doing the same way, perhaps you my reader.  Today I wanted to say that positive motivation is a very positive way of reduplicating our dear students’ efforts.  I mean, we have to correct our students’ behavior and mistakes, and that is necessary, but let us not forget to reckon and recognize what our students do well. Their efforts, I mean.  I often – not always – say to my adult learners at the end of the lessons, when these ones are over, something like “Okay, thank you for your cooperation”. And it works. And my stu...

Some teachers do not feel well in the classroom, because they feel somewhat anxious, they say. But, if you let me tell you, don’t you attend the class in order to seek what is good and convenient for your dear students? I would like for you to be somewhat relaxed in the classroom. I apply that principle to me myself. Better said, some sane and nice tension is desirable in order to attain your jobs as teachers of your class-groups. Teaching ensues some easy tension, let’s say: You cannot teach or work anywhere else without some tranquil tension, so as to say.  Those class-groups together with you make up working-teams, where everyone can contribute to the learning processes.  Education is precisely to extract from your students the best from themselves. Education also is leading our dear students toward becoming better persons and ones that can afford their own lives.  As well we have to educate our students in accordance with what their parents wish for t...

We teachers – we have a great profession! – have to correct our students, for we want to educate them for life, don’t we? Nevertheless also we have to reckon their work and let them know about what they do well and correctly! That counts for much and we will be boosting their learning!  I can assure you it’s so, it’s like that, I’ve seen it in my students and in other groups of people. Positive motivation, positive intrinsic motivation can multiply what they do correctly.  Furthermore that is a way of making them repeat what they do well. And they, our students, will do better what they already do well. And we’ll cover their error and mistake gaps.  It’s not flattering, silly adulating, it’s kind of recognizing and noticing what they do well.  We will not be all the time flattering our students. However, when they are doing something right, we can just say some “Yes…” so as to pull our students toward doing things correctly, and toward letting them c...

Most of us teachers in earth north hemisphere may be on vacations. And we know that this break may be somewhat short. So we have to make good use of time.  Do we know how to rest? Do we know how to make good use of this resting and relaxing time?  I do know that we teachers on holidays may have other things to do at this time. But we must learn how to rest. I would say that this recess is for gathering forces and strength for the coming school year 2019-2020.  It’s the time for rejuvenation and recovering our lost forces and strength. It’s a time to perhaps strolling around the countryside or along a solitary beach and think of things that can boost our ordinary work and laboring.  It’s a time to think of our students in a new and fresh way: we’re educating the people that are our society’s near future.  We deal with persons and do not dedicate our nice time to manufacture screws: we work with persons, human beings. And those our dear studen...

I appreciate committed teachers. They’re the protagonists of schools. Together with their dear students.  They promote those students and boost them as learners and as persons themselves. They’re boosting their nation as well.  However, some of those teachers look worried and uneasy. I would tell them, Enjoy teaching! It’s what you’ve got to do in the classroom. Not as a selfish seeking of some insane pride, but for the school community, and the families as well, of course. Come on, enjoy teaching!, I would tell them. When we try and do our best for other people, we likely become happy. Although we'll be happy with God our Father's help. Something else for today. It seems sound and sensible to daily think of the classes we teach – the classes of students I mean. Maybe when planning lessons, we may think of a single thing we have to try those students should better and improve.  Let’s think of those classes, every day, from the air, looking over, thinking ...

I’ve got to say something else about motivation. It seems okay we teachers seek motivation for our students. But one story of schools goes along by saying that once a teacher asked a boy, “Your mom, does she cook dinner for you every day or only when she feels like motivated?”  As well motivation arises from the interior of the person, most of the times, when that learner wishes to really learn. When he or she works hard and willing, from themselves, they likely will find motivation, like many of you teachers: you’re committed teachers and hence over time you feel like motivated or at least you work so hard.  Okay, anyway, let's keep on by trying our students should be motivated. We could only try to also remember that story. At the same time. Have a nice day. / Photo from: Alice Springs School of the Air Australia

I knew a teacher, a good one. He had authority and was not authoritarian.  He knew his students and loved them truly, with benevolence love: he sought the best for them. His students used to respect him in the classroom and out of it.  He was nice and kind, and knew how to somehow kid with his students out of that high school. He got along with his students. He got concerned about them.  He was absolutely normal and regular. He used to try and teach his classes with some seriousness, kind he was, though. He had a natural respect from his students.  In the classroom he tried his best. Since he took his lessons seriously he gained a nice prestige from his students.  He faced his errors and mistakes, even some major problems. You may be thinking he was a superman, and he wasn’t at all. Here I’ve collected my remembrances about a teacher I had when I was 13 and 14, and I can add honestly that I have collected minor details from other teachers I’ve r...

So we’re before a new school year, right? Let’s enjoy it. Yes, you’ve read correctly.  Let’s not think I’m going to have four more classes taught, and after that I’ll enjoy some free time.  Let’s enjoy to teach. Because we treat human people, and so we can expect a lot from them.  Let’s interact with those people, our students. Plus their parents plus our colleagues. We treat people. Don’t forget it.  In the classroom and in the rest of the school we make people act, work, give some reply, participate. And all that’s great. Simply great, isn’t it?  A class, a lesson is something of two: the teacher and the students.  Let’s enjoy treating people, in the classroom and along the school corridors and halls. That treating people enriches us teachers and our students.  Well, plus their parents and the rest of the school personnel.  Let’s not be too perfectionist, if the case. Let’s learn how to enjoy. The point is lo...

The teacher you said? The teacher is many things together.  The teacher is an expert in his or her field. The teacher is an educator,  a tutor,  a clown sometimes,  a consultor,  an advisor,  an animator,  a showman,  an actor,  a psychologist,  a friend,  a family expert,  an entrepreneur,  an artist,  a counselor,  a painter,  a story-teller,  a computer expert,  a communicator,  an assistant,  a declamatory person,  a writer,  a magician,  a humanity herald,  an expert on human kind,  an apostle,  a judge,  a health helper,  like a sollicitor,  an astute person,  a sportsman,  a detective,  a talkative person,  a museum usher,  an excursion expert,  a leader,  a hot news expert,  a corrector,  a peacemaker,  ...

We teachers want to help our students learn how to learn, right? Also how to study a lesson, right?  Well then, if I were a student, how would I study myself? We may think of it and thus we could help our students learn how to study.  If I were a student I would study in a mode and way I could not accomplish when I was a kid.  In that way we can help our students greatly and enrich their studying.  For if I was a student I would study: with some benign sense of humor, by relating and associating new things with already learned material, with big effort, with nice concentration and focusing, by associating new things together, by making nice diagrams, with nice curiosity at learning new things…  All those points can help and enrich my students, in their inner struggle at learning how to study. / Photo from: Sixt rent a car Iceland. Did you know that in Iceland they speak a language which has the same origin as English? They are Germanic ...

It's great we teachers get in touch through forums on the Internet to help those who truly want to learn!  Yet from time to time, even often, we can find students with serious shortcomings or deficiencies, right?  Those kids that cannot implement even the simplest activities I mean.  I’m thinking of some example I’ve faced. I think now I would approach that case in a different way and mode. That happened many years ago.  Those kids may need psychological help. Those kids may suffer from their own failures.  The first approach must be given from affection and professionalism. Even those kids may reach far when adults. Now - and always! - they deserve all our affection and dedication, although we may have many more students.  At tutoring sessions also we can help them great. Just smiling and with small laughing with them at those meetings may help them great too. We have to find their strong points, because they may have hidden re...

When teaching adults we can allow us teachers some sense of humor in the classroom.  Also with kids, of course.  At the beginning of last school year I started to teach grown-ups at another school.  I started firm, cordial though. I started in English all the time of the lesson or closely, but I tried to be cordial anyway. Anyway… I noted they were so tense, so much that I realized I must break the ice.  Speaking all the time in English – the target language – may be so tense and demanding for the students. So one day I told them in Spanish – our mother tongue – that we were not going to pass public examinations – “oposiciones” in Spanish – and they had a small laugh, also me...  Well then, it meant a transition or turning point. Since then our relationships have been much closer or cordial, and we both students and I make up a working team.  Sense of humor is necessary, plus some smiling. Also with kids, but only when the class...

Communication. That’s the goal. That’s the main objective for our lessons.  We second or foreign language teachers and teachers in general have to direct our classes to set nice communication among us the teacher and the students.  Thus we will not use the students’ language too much: we will tend to use the target tongue massively, turning to that mother language when it is indispensable, because there might big problems at using the target language.  Okay, well, but what if our students use that mother language in the classroom?  We will push them to use the target tongue.  For example we may foster the communication in English – the goal tongue – because we make up and create some need of using that language in the classroom.  I’ve seen it: when we teachers speak in English we’re creating a nice atmosphere where English is simply necessary. It is as if the classroom was a place from a country where English is the language com...

Obviously we teachers have to educate our students’ intelligence. And we may be working on it. Okay then, also we have to educate their feelings and sentiments, their affectivity.  First premise: it is their parents who have firstly to educate those feelings of theirs. And we teachers help at that education. Our mission is subsidiary. We help their families.  Can our intelligence govern our feelings and sentiments? It can, in some way.  We can strive to have for example positive thoughts, positive resolutions to carry out our duties. And if we thus struggle to have positive and rational thoughts, in that way we can make positive and rational feelings arise inside us.  If we try to have positive and rational thoughts, our feelings can go toward a positive and optimistic side. / Photo from: chess-smarter Examined existence

  “Respecting other people makes us more respectable.” I wrote that note some days ago. I know that if we respect and treat our students nice we will likely be more respected. If we treat our students with seriousness and respect we will likely be more valued and respected. Because we give to others what we already have. What we do not have we cannot give to others. Politeness and respect are paramount at treating students. Also inside a family. I’ve seen that when there’s love and politeness and respect between wife and husband that marriage and that family will likely be happy. We must learn how to learn about ourselves. If we’re tired, weary and nervous we should not argue. A friend of mine used to say that when you are under those feelings you should not quarrel with other family members. That incident may have no importance, you can tell yourself: now it is not the right moment to argue: that has no importance or very little, I will wait to be more serene to ...

  We as teachers have a public work. We’re on the summit of the classroom. So whatever we do or whatever we don’t influence on our students, our dear students. We should set an example, however we choose one model or another of teaching. We somewhat have the responsibility of our students’ behavior. We influence upon our students. Although it’s the parents who have the main role at educating our students, we have a subsidiary or complementary role at educating them. All this is serious and beautiful at the same time. However, we’re not alone, for we can tentatively count on our colleagues and principals or principal deputies. And of course we can count on our Father God’s help. We teachers have to be strong and have fortitude, for we in some way are leading our students’ lives. We set an example, firstly at working hard. I know that most of you are dedicated teachers. We must have fortitude because we hold our students’ lives, in some way. We hold our students...