Experiences of a teacher of English

  We teachers cannot separate nor split being a teacher and being concerned about each and every student of ours. More than being worried about them, any of them I mean, we should be concerned, and we can think how we can alleviate our students’ sorrows and concerns, and share their joys as well. They expect that from us, up to some extent. Although they may be troublesome sometimes or even often. Now I’m remembering a teacher I had at my secondary school. I was fourteen, and one day I was kind of worried, serious or a bit sad in the classroom. I was holding my head between my hands. And that teacher, Mr. Miguel Ponce, a nice priest, asked me, at the beginning of one class whether I was fine or not. And I answered something not very polite or elegant anyway. After some time I realized he had been nice with me and not me toward him. I had replied as a teen that doesn’t like to be asked by an adult. It was a nice thing by him – I don’t know what is about him, or even if...

  I bear you all in mind and keep praying for you, people from Texas and Louisiana. I have some friends mainly in Houston and I’m worried and concerned about you. God bless you, J.L. I stand by you.

  Oh, you know, I’m not sure at all but quite many people now bet that the flipped-classroom model is okay for learning. You may know about it. The students would firstly read from the Internet about some topic they have to learn about, and they’d do so at home, and also they would kind of visualize the topic also at home, as I said, or in libraries. And in the classroom they with their teacher and their classmates would gently discuss about their findings. Some people state that it’s a revolutionary way of learning and it’s great, in few words. But I put a question: is it not okay first for the teacher to say something about the topic or topics before the kids seek and search for stuff about those issues? Anyway their teacher could help his students look for valid material, this is, he would help focus the topic or topics, because on the Web there’s plenty – actually too much about this or that theme, is that right? I think the teacher should assist in some way the...

  Our dear students have to create and make up their communicative competences in the target language, okay. And the chance they have is in the classroom proper, right? Sometimes we talk about either a second or a foreign language, but English in Spain is somehow a second language, because so many things are in that tongue in real life. So English might not be a foreign language anymore, but a second one, with a qualified certainty. In Spain now you can hear more and more English on the streets. Or at least in some cities, like Granada, the so much touristic Granada. Coming back to the classroom I can tell you that with my adult students my experience is that you can have that special atmosphere in the classroom all the time, also before and after the English lesson, because all or some of my students ask me questions in English when I just entered the classroom, which curiously is a library. Summing up I can assure you my students are developing nice communicative co...

  So we have that we second or foreign language teachers have to train our dear students to communicate in that target language, English for example. Great Rebecca Oxford (1990) offers some learning strategies that are useful for communication, both by speaking and by writing – also by listening and by reading. For example: switching to the mother tongue; getting help; using mime or gesture; adjusting or approximating the message; coining words; using a circumlocution or synonym… If we think of them they’re great for communication in English or any other language! The point for us teachers is creating a nice atmosphere in the classroom where English is precisely the vehicle language for understanding among ourselves! And here we’re referring to the grand language-learning-and-acquiring approach which is the communicative approach. Here we have to also consider the “Importance [which] is given to learners’ personal experiences and situations, which are considered as an...

  The new school year is about to start, right? And we teachers will get so committed with our students and our classes. We will try our students would make good use of the class time. But is it sensible to assign homework, or otherwise it is okay with the school lessons and that’s it? How much homework should we teachers assign? I would tell you that homework is necessary, just necessary. For example if we are second or foreign language teachers, our students need extra time at home when they’re easy and relaxed to re-read texts we have worked out at school. When our students are relaxed at home – hopefully they’re so! – they should dedicate some time for re-reading, doing some drill exercise, some more fiction writing or non-fiction essays, focusing on some grammar point and practicing by using it in meaningful contexts… So the answer is a qualified YES, they should have SOME homework. However let’s consider that those students of ours have other school subjects –...

  The committed teacher! The committed teacher will for sure dedicate some time – which may be not paid anyway! – to think of some basic general points about the school year that is about to start. It depends on the teacher but some of them are used to thinking about that new school year afresh, starting from some general points toward something more punctual. And when thinking in general, he will think: What can I expect from my new students, or from the students I had last year? Or also: What main aims should I have before the new school year? And he’ll think of one or two general goals. And he will also dream high about his doing and what his students are going to do. And he can think of these points while strolling along a park or the countryside or wherever, or when right opposite his computer, before planning that school year. What I mean is that before the actual planning he should ask himself what he has to do and what his students have to do, at the view...