Experiences of a teacher of English

One day teacher A said to teacher B, "I've been thinking these days that there are more female teachers than guys - teachers of English: it's so in Spain. It makes me think. Even with regard to teachers, by and large: female teachers also in other subjects, both primary and secondary education: more female teachers. As far as I know, this has been so along history, and today too. Think of their particular way of taking care of children, looking after little important details, etc. In my neighbor's family there have been some teachers: his sister, three of his aunts, one brother; and his grandfather was the representative of a publisher of text-books and educative material, also of coursebooks of English. It's nice to know that men and women can be complementary at work. Look, my neighbor's niece is in charge of an extracurricular activity, drama, out of the regular classes schedule: she has some 20 kids aged around 7 to 9 years, and she has to make a small dra...

One day teacher B said to teacher A, "Yesterday I forgot to tell you something: Be creative in your planning the course . Give your own personal, maybe somehow genius, stroke, your own style, be yourself. Dream, and dream high - although realistic, but anyway dream high, thinking high of your learners." Achomawi mother and child - Thank you www old-picture com

One day teacher B said to teacher A, " My advice about the syllabus or planning of an academic year? I'll let you know just one point. Besides planning the units, procedures, objectives, activities, tests and the kind, oh, and the points the department of English obliges you to implement, think of one key objective: have fun with your students and help them in oral activities, I mean, above all practice speaking in English, with sense of humor and the firm resolution to make your students as happy as possible. Let hem feel loved really by you. Why oral activities mainly? A lot of adults tell me they studied English or French when at the school, but they have not learned English or French: they did many exercises and grammar but they can't speak in those languages." John Ford, somehow the inventor of Westerns, directed The Searchers , released in 1956, starring John Wayne. This latter star got boosted by this film: it was the one that got him reckoned as an actor wi...

One day teacher A said to teacher B, " You should take into account how your students feel in the classroom : if they are fine, or they have any possible distress (or stress). Don't go to the classroom just to teach your lesson. Ask your tutored student at the tutorial. Be warm with him. Moreover this brings no problems because your school is single-sex. You both can create confidence. Ask him how he feels in the class-period. If he can concentrate and work, or rather has any problem. He can work only in an atmosphere of attentive and neat work."

One day teacher A said to teacher B, “Words, as you know, are essential for any communication. No words, no communication. One student of mine told me, some days ago, about his tricks to learn new words. He is learning Finnish. Finnish is not an Indo-European language. He does a variety of things. Writes a list of new words. Now he writes longer lists of words he picks here and there. He dares to write longer lists: he thought before he shouldn’t write too long lists. He makes a mental photograph of the word or phrase. Something that helps him is to unconsciously relate the new word with a cognate of his own language. A cognate or one similar word in some way: “pelliohjet”, which is Finnish word, resembles and sounds similar to Spanish “pelo”, and “jet” reminds of English “jet”, “yet”. That Finnish word means “guide of rules” (of a board game). He learned that word weeks ago. He uses Wordreference , a nice dictionary-plus-forum on the Web. He revises the words by making mental training...

Below is a part of a chapter of the book I wrote on TEFL, some years ago. I copied and pasted something about courses and programs for learning English in countries where that language is the mother tongue. I've made some minor changes. This text keeps some positive and nice experiences I have with regard to those courses abroad, and it be also nice to provide with some useful tips. The Scottish piper picture was taken from a website of which I didn't save the name. Sorry for the format problems of this post: the book is in the Word program. En el colegio en el que trabajaba en Jaén (sur de España) hasta 2002 los chicos pasaban el primer trimestre de curso en Irlanda, estudiando lo mismo que en España, más o menos. Tanto el centro de Irlanda como el nuestro de España son masculinos. Las mismas empresas tienen sedes femeninas. Se escogen familias conocidas, y de buena reputación. Va un profesor con ellos, de España. Recuerdo con agrado por ejemplo el caso de José Ignacio, que po...

I copy from a document of mine. It’s a summary of the research I have carried out these years about success in learning a language. This text is like a tip for teachers, a tip to keep in mind. A person who really wishes to learn a language , and he has the firm resolution to achieve that goal, he is on the right pathway toward success. This resolution is an effective will plus some like of learning that language. You love what you know. You know more and more, and this fact makes you love learning and carrying on learning. You ever learn, from this text, from that text, from a notice, etc. All the time. Every day. You pick up one word here, one other word there. That is the learner that achieves learning. Picture from www mountainguideschool com - Thank you.