Experiences of a teacher of English

  I was leafing through a magazine for learning English, featuring varied topics, and once again I made the resolution to every day dedicate some minutes to learning new vocabulary, maybe from my Oxford Dictionary of English , which was a Christmas present from some friends. Today Saturday I wanted to say that novice and rookie teachers at our schools should be monitored during and through the first years of their job as teachers, say, for the first three years at least. Veteran teachers can do this task in a nice way, and I know about this point from my own experience. Also from my experience I would say that male teachers could monitor male green teachers, and the same for female teachers: a novice teacher can suffer through dire straits at the beginning of his or her career and can subsequently reach a close friendship and intimacy with the veteran colleague – many teachers think that way too. Even this task or small job could be instituted at our schools. As well ...

  A good online dictionary you asked? I’d recommend you Wordreference . I just came back and arrived home from my lesson with grown-ups, an English language lesson. They’re great. They wish to learn English and acquire a really good communication competence, and they’re achieving it, yes sir. They’ve been talking with one another about getting together after my classes for them to carry on speaking in English, on their own. They’re great, those people! Today one of them asked me some questions about grammar, about the usage of some similar verbs in English, and even he, a great fellow, made up a theory about a grammar point, from what he could deduce and infer. The theory turned out to be false, but I congratulated him anyway because he made up a language theory, and that’s totally positive. He needs the grammar as a skeleton for real talking fluently in English. That is about a paramount point for adults learning a language: they tend to use their own learning stra...

  I wanted to tell you today that I have realized in this morning lesson that it was my duty to make my students feel better at the classroom, which currently is a library. The point was that I realized I had to encourage them and recognize that for example some of them have a nice big vocabulary. I got amazed when one of my students today, a male one, was speaking in English more than what I knew or supposed to know – bravo for him! They’re Spanish grown-ups. And the lessons are great with them. Also I noticed I had to say okay to their contributions: it looks as if they knew more English for oral communication and speaking – bravo for all of them! Classes can develop and flourish in English 99% of the assigned and allotted time! So if you’re a foreign or second language teacher, remember you have to correct their mistakes and errors, some of them I mean, but also remember to praise their targets and goals! It’s so motivating! After the lesson they told me, today t...

  We teachers have to listen to our students, to whatever they want to tell us, is that right? And also we teachers should retain those pieces of information they want to tell us. Affection and love of benevolence will make us keep all that information concerning our students. And we’ll know how to ask them about those important points. They may be little things but for them they may be of a paramount importance, right? All this is part of our profession as teachers, a marvelous task, and more than a task, which is not going to be paid to us, yet it’s important and inherent to our job as teachers. I guess so. This morning an adult student of mine asked me how we teachers can retain our dear students’ names. Well, I told them, it’s part of a memorizing training, plus affection and love of benevolence. As plain as that. / Photo from: Students-in-classroom Perpetual Student - Knowledge Enhance Vision

  I believe in freedom and liberty as a way of educating our students. I try it be not naïve anyway. There’re times and occasions when you can trust what your students are telling you, and then you believe in them, and this makes them more confident and responsible and honest too. They grow as themselves when you treat them that way. They might lie to you but you give them chances to be honest. I was treated that way when I was a teen, and I can assure you that helped me be honest and I think I was living an adventure: I admired my teachers who treated me that way. One example of giving a chance to trust our students? There could be some mess among them in the classroom while we are absent for a moment, and before that mess I can ask a passing-by student from that classroom what’s going on. And I would trust him. I would trust in what he wants to tell me. You know, the point is offering our students a chance to be themselves. And this is quite educative, for it make...

  Oh, I’m in a bit of a hurry, and besides I’ve got to teach and recycle my English, to maintain a nice level of that marvelous language. I already have a level that is equivalent to C2, but, as I said, I have got to recycle it and improve it, all the time. After Christmas I made the resolution of learning one, or two… or a few words daily from The Oxford Dictionary of English , all of a masterpiece. Sorry for the mistakes and errors. Well, dear people, aren’t you in a hurry too? I know that most or nearly all the teachers that read what I post are busy ones, aren’t you? And, however, you achieve to teach your discipline as good as possible – I know you in some way, readers of TeacherLingo. So I will have to learn words from here, from there, picking one here, picking one from there beyond, even consulting the dictionary at the classes and lessons proper or from my smartphone! Sometimes something nice that occurs to me is that I can retrieve words I’ve learned once ...

  Quisiera hacer una breve reseña del libro de Jean Guitton (1901-1999) El trabajo intelectual . Es un libro que te hace redescubrir lo sensacional que es y que puede ser el trabajo intelectual. Va dirigido a estudiantes, pero también puede ser muy útil a los que todavía somos estudiantes, y siempre lo seremos, y a los que escribimos. Para que aprendamos. Va pegado al suelo pero también te hace volar sobre un trabajo intelectual fructífero y enriquecedor, para la propia persona, y posiblemente quizá para los que entran en contacto con ella, personalmente o a través de sus escritos. Genial, como el propio autor. / Photo from: flying-7 combiboilersleeds com