Experiences of a teacher of English

Your children can and should know about the economic crisis, up to what they can understand. Also concerning your family and house.  In that way they, with your help and assistance, can cooperate to the family economy with small jobs, like teaching private classes. Talk with all of them in order to specify ways to make money.  Obviously they as well should have chores to carry out at home.  The point is that all the family should be close together so as to attain specific goals.  Communication is key important here, as well as when you talk with your wife about another family stuff, like your children’s education for instance. / Photo from: familia numerosa. providaalicante blogspot com

According to scholar and expert H. D. Brown also adults can acquire a language, not only “learn” it.  In order to attain that, the students need massive listening from you or from a CD or DVD player.  Before they start to speak they have been trained with that massive listening. I would advise you all the class should be in the target language, English in our case.  In the end they speak. They do it with many errors and mistakes but communication has been set. You teacher can correct SOME of those errors and mistakes, not everything.  If you’ve got to give them some announcement, I’d tell you to say it in English. Then, if you notice they did not grasp the message, you can use L1, but remember: the more English used the better. Try the class would be in English about 90% or 95% of the time allotted to that class. / Photo from: student thinking edtosavetheworld com

Learning to spell correctly is something that adds a point to classes totally in English or in other modern language. It helps students to immerse in the class and the language.  First you teacher can write the alphabet on the whiteboard (for example) and practice naming each letter, in alphabetical order.  Then, in order to practice furtherly, tap with your marker on the letters in alphabetical order and the students say the sounds as a chorus. Afterward tap randomly.  All this serves the purpose of you teacher writing the words the students say in their contributions to the class. And as well you can teach them a word and they write it down on their notebooks, by spelling the word.  Also to practice spelling in English is pretty good because as you know we write and say the same word in a different way in English, like “Gloucester”, “choir”, “traffic circle”. / Photo from: madre e hija. discreame blogspot com

She was new and rookie at that secondary education center.  She had to suffer dire straits: her students were so cunning so as to find a crevice in her conducting to be disruptive. The poor girl was choked. Sometimes she cried, bitterly.  A male teacher of the same department noticed all this. She was careful nobody be aware about her suffering.  One day the male teacher could not stand any longer and addressed her tactfully, and made her give vents. She was crying.  However, since that day he started to monitor her conducting, and even he asked her about her stuff. The relationship was closer and closer, and one day she asked her to stroll about the nearby park, so as she to say all her trouble.  One day he took her right hand and told her to be clear, come on: he would assist and help her with her first classes.  They really fell in love with each other, and started to go out often, after the school classes.  In the...

Youngsters’ relaxing and leisure activities cannot be passive, evasive, escaping… They should think of their vacations as some time to plunge into active and creative activities.  Now think of our students and their weekends. They live with the weekend as the maximum point in their lives. And this thought is wrong and self-destructive or alienating.  I’ve met some students who did sport, invented active ways of relaxing, like planning an excursion, organizing and running lotteries for their vacation neighbors, planning and rehearsing funny drama plays, swimming competitions, etc.  This latter view of relaxing time and resting demands a positive attitude, which is pretty educative and instructive. Those activities were organized by friend gangs at vacation venues. / Photo from: 13-fantastic-gifts-for-the-world-traveler. www businessinsider com

Watching a movie is a great activity, and it fits a mixed-ability class.  You play the movie after having done a brainstorm about the movie: topic, title, etc.  So you play the movie and stop or pause from time to time. Then you ask some questions, from the difficult What is going to happen then?, to the simple How many people are there on the scene?  Obviously they like films, and as I said this is an activity they enjoy a lot.  Besides it breaks the monotonous and boring routine of classes.  Choose a movie that would be appropriate to the kids and their age. Some experience I have: skip sex scenes, or even better, do not play movies with explicit sex scenes.  It’s an activity in which you have them speak, speak and speak – speaking sometimes is the most valuable language skill to teach. / Photo from: Taj Traveller Itinerary Main 2 Group Tour India. www onthegotours com

Many, many of us teachers have ever talked about our students’ motivation.  Classes should be motivating, education itself should be motivating.  Students’ motivation is essential, we have said.  Well, the point is that motivation often comes when students work hard: they become motivated because they have deepened in the school subject. They get to know the subject (English for example), and since they work hard and study and do different activities, they become involved in the subject and so they become motivated in working hard.  Often motivation comes after work, not before. / Photo from: business travelers. dialog scarborough com