Experiences of a teacher of English

  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...

  Today I wished to tell you about several points I consider as paramount.  First, what the teacher does influences upon his or her students. Even I would say that that influences both if he or she does something in the classroom and even in their private life. We teachers transmit and pass on what we are. What we are, I insist on purpose.  So if a teacher is nice, kind, committed in her profession, respectful toward her students, growing as a person and as a professional, and quite some other good things, well, she will do a big good to those students.  Otherwise if that teacher carried out his job in a sloppy way, he would not attain and accomplish to teach well, and likely he would not educate his learners, the persons that have been entrusted to him by their families. That person could do a big bad to those persons. I retain the positive: if a teacher strives to do his job well, he will do a big good to a lot of people.  Another issue, connected with the pre...

  We teachers may be spending some nice vacation, or otherwise we may be still working, or even we may be dreaming nice about next school year.  It may be a good moment anyway to put our profession in front of our eyes and try to improve our teaching job.  For example we may think that we don’t just teach but also educate those people for a happy future and a happy present now.  As well we have to educate people who will try hard to make happy to those other people our students will treat.  We definitely have to educate those people, but in accordance with their parents and in much way in accordance with human dignity.  For example we have to teach those students how to contemplate beauty.  Not only will we try to form people for the so demanding job market today, but we teachers are right there in the classroom to carry out something else, and that something else definitely is educating them.  I teach English to adults. And we deal with texts in ...

  Does the teacher have to give contents and knowledge to his or her students? Or otherwise he or she has to foster their students look for those contents and knowledge? Both.  However, that teacher has to give that information, those ideas, concepts, data, notions. They have to give contents and knowledge.  But their students will not be passive. It’s not like a half-robot which gives a lecture to an audience and that’s it. No. In the classroom, both face-to-face and remote, there will be a nice conversation, where the students may ask and comment on some points, with order and agreement.  The students are active in that classroom.  I teach English, as you must know. English as a foreign language, or English as a second language, and this latter case more and more in Spain, for more and more people speak English.  Now I teach online.  And I try to get a lot of conversation arise. I ask my dear students. Sometimes namely or nominatim , and many times I...

Let us not forget that we teachers of a second or a foreign language have to foster communication among people, among persons.  Persons with all that that means. People’s dignity pushes up teachers to consider that being a human person entails a lot, quite a lot! For example when treating our students in the classroom as well as out of the classroom along the school facilities, halls, corridors, common rooms, offices… we teachers have to empathize with those people, with those singular and significant persons. Also with very nice and exquisite respect toward them. Also along the school year – which now is coming to an end here in Spain – we have to take into account what we learn and get to know about all those people. Let's listen to them carefully and by keeping what they say to us or to other teachers. A teacher cannot treat those people like they were numbers or, even worse, steps upon which I can move up a selfish career toward my own selfish satisfaction....

Obviously it is convenient and correct we teachers should try to keep discipline in the classroom.  However, let’s not focus all our strength on managing the class.  If we achieve to get our dear students focused on work, that work which is being carried out will make them more focused and roped in the lesson. In that way also we will help them become more interested in what is being developed in the classroom.  And furthermore, more likely than not, they will be more motivated.  Otherwise, if we devote too much effort and time to keeping them calm, we will not teach at all. It's kind of a balance, a nice balance. Have a nice weekend. / Photo from: Skyscrapers The RG Group

If you realize about that, teachers’ and students’ everyday work entails taking care of little things.  In the classroom and out of there both the teacher and his students must take care of little things: tidiness, keeping the class schedule, arriving on time and being punctual at every class and other dates, tidy classrooms with maybe students’ small jobs to take care of those school places, loyalty, joy, industriousness, etc.  It is kind of a constellation of little things that are necessary for everyday conducting at the school.  Even more, the only way for the students to learn is a peaceful atmosphere in the classroom. Anyway sometimes music for example can help our students learn, but my own experience tells that only when that nice quiet atmosphere is created in the classroom and along the school can the students learn and grow up nice and with no strident notes at their personalities.  Students need peace. Teachers need peace.  A...

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

  We teachers have to value and recognize our students’ effort and struggle. Also when assigning them their final grades. We teachers have to put in their shoes. Well, we teachers may be tired and exhausted this far of the school year. Also they may be (likely) tired and exhausted. So let’s value and recognize their work and effort this far of the school year. Even when addressing the whole class in the classroom we could be nice and kind and so value and recognize their effort. We have to empathize with our students. Come on, there’s little left of the school year now! Let’s make the sprint of the race and set the last bricks stones of the beautiful building of the school year! Let’s explain this to them, with further nice words. For us teachers this is one more year and for our young students that is a paramount year in their growing up! We are educating people, we have human beings in our hands! Their education is up to us, though primarily and mainly in their pa...

  “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 ...

  Taking care of little things is important for a teacher. It is, indeed. Everyday teaching is composed of little things: cleaning the board after my class, for the next teacher to find it clean and neat; having my students arrange their desks at the end of the work day or after a class if they got disordered; teaching my students to use the bathroom well and thinking it will be cleaned by the cleaning staff or personnel, mostly ladies; not dropping bags and wrapping paper at the playground; having my students have small jobs for them to also learn to take care of little things; dealing with the school material in a nice way for it to last for long, quite long; having their tablets screens rather clean, from time to time; using their books in a neat way… All that said is very educative. Maybe we will not find the fruit of our work now, but our students will be so grateful for our work when they become more mature or adults. Our job as teachers simpl...

  We teachers have to plan the lessons and we may be embarked in such a labor. Okay, that’s okay. But also the teacher should consider and bear in mind what his students need along the following weeks. He should take into account and bear in mind some things his students need to improve. Or in other words, what he should carry out in view of his students’ academic necessities. As well those general ideas to take into account may refer to the students’ feelings and sentiments. For example I could think that my students have to prepare oral presentations about a topic their choice, but on the other hand I can bear in mind that what they more urgently need is to have some fun or some relax in the following classes, perhaps some nice sense of humor... All that series of goals may be something intuitive, and it’s much easier when the teacher is gaining experience. I’m finishing this post. Alike what I have to take into account may also be something my students have to ...

  We are in front of the big exams now or we may be. And we have the problem that some of our students may try to cheat, or in any case we want to avoid that cheating, is that right? Okay, in order to avoid and prevent from cheating at exams we could permit and allow our students to bring books and notes to that big final exam... The activities of the exam to carry out should be ones of elaboration and maturity. They may have to write an essay or composition and in that way it is easy to assess our students’ progress this year. Well, that is an example of activity. In other words, we could assess the level of English the students have accomplished. Also their maturity. And their writing style. I say all this because cheating today with electronic devices is something rather simple. I had a college subject exam – literature – where we were allowed to bring something to the classroom. It is also true that that professor or teacher assigned nice marks to all his students...

  Meals at school is a nice chance to educate our students. They have to learn how to have lunch properly. For example they have to learn how to wait and form a line. Also they’ll learn, with our help, to take whatever they are able to eat and not to have spare food that will go to the trash can and ultimately to the dumpster. There are many countries where they’re suffering a famine... As well they should learn not to be capricious nor whimsical nor fussy. Also we can tell the cooks to serve whatever the kids are able to eat, and not too much. They will throw their peels to the trash can also properly. Sorry to descend to such details but having lunch has many small things to take care of and is so educative! If some peel or paper napkins drop out of the garbage can we’ll tell that kid to pick them up. Of course and I said it already, they should not throw spare food to that can. I was remembering about a camp I attended in the summers: we the monitors used to sit ...

  A sensitive teacher knows how to recognize and appreciate his students’ hard work, and even more at the end of the school year, and in public. Although there were errors, mistakes and misbehavior he knows that with gracious words he can gain the class of the students to his side. In that way he’ll be raising his students’ morale, as the good generals knew how to ponder their soldiers’ good features and great deeds and feats. I’ll be writing more maybe tomorrow or later today. / Photo from: House Beautiful. I do like libraries. At present I teach at a library-classroom, and sometimes while my students are writing silently I often look over the books on the shelves, always prone to help them in case they need it.

Do we teachers educate our students’ emotions, feelings and sentiments? Of course the first task and duty is for their parents, but we teachers can help a lot. There may be a great emotion illiteracy: we simply don’t know much about educating emotions into positive feelings. In other words our students should be balanced at emotions, and that’s so or more important than intellectual education and instruction. Remember we’re educating for life now and for their future. Spanish teacher and neuropsychologist Fernando Alberca (2017) postulates we should educate our students’ and children’s emotions, as I said, to achieve happiness ultimately. At tutoring sessions a lot can be done: leading emotions (something rather passive) into feelings and ideas (something active). Often our students and we teachers as well may have negative emotions, irrational ones, which are exaggerations and negative emotions, which we should re-orientate into rational, positive and reasonable thoughts. Our st...

  We teachers have to educate our students about other countries and other continents. Also we teachers should pay attention to what’s happening in those maybe far countries. For example rich countries have to help poorer countries develop themselves. I had a friend that lived in a country of Africa, maybe Nigeria. He told me that those third-world countries had to develop by themselves, with the people they had at those countries. As well we should educate our students about a sound ecology: they have to learn to take care of our planet. If we take our students to excursions, and we should do it, we can teach them for example not to drop garbage around in the countryside: wrapping papers, cans, plastic bags… We’re educating future citizens. That friend of mine also told me that clever youngsters went to richer countries to study and many of them stayed in those richer countries of the first-world, after college. And those young people would be the ones that would p...