Experiences of a teacher of English

  Who has not worked on readers and abridged and simplified books when teaching English or any other language? They’re great. In my opinion the first goal is for our students to understand and enjoy and delight what they’re reading. The main point when reading a novel can be enjoying reading it. For that goal our students should be able to understand what they’re reading, and so they might have to look up some words in their dictionaries or online dictionaries. Or they could try to guess the meaning of new words from the context, which is good practice for them! Moreover classics and other books bring about educating values: generosity, love, friendship, patriotism, endurance, honesty, sincerity, courage, magnanimity, professionalism… Those books foster kind of a school of values and virtues alike. Besides they can be useful as assigned homework, but always taking into account our students also have other school subjects and probably other homework tasks to fulfill. A...

  I’ve written for long about class management and classroom discipline, and you can consult the labels or tags at the right column of my blog. Okay then, I would add that the best discipline is the teacher’s moral authority, the one gained because of his prestige as a teacher. Moreover also the best discipline is self-discipline: the one gained by some students that are convinced they wish to learn and acquire English. I’ve seen it in real life. As well and in order to reinforce those discipline and class management the teacher can, from time to time, talk to his students about the positive value that is paying attention and behaving well: they will gain more than if otherwise they become disruptive. Discipline and class management are built day after day, with a perseverant labor and welfare at the classroom, both by the students and by their teacher. Thus we as teachers can converse, discuss, talk at the classroom with our students for these latter ones to get pers...

  Let’s be careful, because some of our dear students could be suffering from solitude and loneliness, although they may be surrounded by their classmates and teachers. I knew a case, a classmate of mine when I was a schoolboy, when I was 12 or 13 years, who felt so lonely. His name was Sebastián and had a tragic end. From here I make him a homage. So both teachers and students should be on alert. Better if male teachers receive male students’ pains and sorrows, and the same for female teachers and female students. Tutoring sessions can be a nice chance to observe and learn about these problems. Let’s be watchful because those poor students could be not sharing their wounds with other people, neither with their families... We people are not made to live in a lonely way: we need other people and other people need us too! A person develops himself by counting on others. Oh, and there could also be lonely teachers as well – think of novice teachers for example. Also we...

We teachers should also talk with our students apart our classes. And we’ll do so in order to be updated about their likes, with prudence. Even more if we’re over 40 years, I would say. In other contexts different from classes themselves we should chat with them, and also they will get to know us better, in other contexts, as I said. Because of that it may be sensible to run short excursions or escapes from the school. Our students thus will see we’re human and normal people. We might positively influence on their education thanks to and due to the prestige we will have gained from our teaching and classes, well sketched and drafted – remember I told you we should plan each and every lesson. We have to be updated about their likes, with a convenient prudence. Do we know about their videogames, cell phone gadgets, etc.? Or otherwise we think any past time was better than now? We teachers and adults in general should be enthused with modern times, which have both positive and n...

  In Spain at least many students don’t know how to study English and its correspondent school subject, and therefore they also fail at learning and acquiring that language. They don’t know what to do with their textbook and activity book, for training for a test for instance. It is a school subject so different from History, Biology, Chemistry, Literature, etc. Therefore too there’s a big failure at getting good grades: those students get bad grades definitely. There was a case in which a student one day thought of carefully re-reading the texts from the textbook at home, trying to understand the gist of the story plus each sentence within that story… and he did improve his grades, over time! No one had ever told him how to treat those texts, which on the other hand were interesting – a story about some specific characters, and funny besides. Those students who do not know how to study, moreover, have to face up with tests they do not know how to answer: they weren...

  I’ve been writing for long about teaching English and educating our students. Since 2009. I do like to teach and educate, in their parents’ name. I like to treat people, both young and adults as well. Teaching and educating are just great. You know that you can leave a nice and fine trace in your students: what you teach and educate now, and the way you carry it out is like a seed that will yield fruit soon and during all their lives too. What a responsibility! Whatever you do and whatever you don’t do influence on our students for a great deal. What teachers can we remember and recall more frequently and better? Those ones that were really good teachers, right? They planted a seed that configures your life for a lot, doesn’t it? The idea you have about life influences on your students, and this is irremediable. Perhaps teaching is a job that can gratify for deals. Perhaps it is one of the jobs that can hurt you most or otherwise gratify you most. It is nice and b...

Today is a rainy day in Granada, south of Spain. Kids enjoy rain a lot.