Experiences of a teacher of English

  I wish my students would learn and acquire English, and you also wish that from your students as a teacher.  You know, those learners must be willing to learn that language, no matter their age, yet above all if they are kids from some ten years of age – before that age they are pretty naturally willing to learn.  Of course they must be that willing if they’re teens or adults.  Only that way can they learn and acquire the foreign or second language. The more willing they are, the more language they’ll learn and acquire.  And learning and acquiring a language is not just attending some classes and just sitting there and just see what the teacher does. You don’t learn English that way at all. It entails your whole self. It’s not just sitting and listening to some audio. It’s not like learning math or history – and in no way do I despise those subjects. It’s what scholar and expert H. D. Brown used to say: you must involve your whole self: physical, emotional, me...

  If you know about teaching and learning another language, you may know that some experts have said that that teaching should be student-centered, right?  Yeah, I can see the point, but to achieve that, the classroom has to be also teacher-centered.  All of us teachers want our students would learn for example English, and to attain that goal, well, the teacher is a central piece in that classroom.  Most students who have gotten to learn and acquire that second or foreign language, well, mostly they have also had good teachers.  If we wish a number of learners in a schoolroom will learn a tongue, we have to get very good language teachers.  No good teachers, likely no good language learners.  Behind a good learner often is a good teacher.  Well you may also have a good student with a poor teacher, of course, but what I mean is that we have to invest on getting good teachers if we want those students will attain to learn English.  And that go...

  So we have already finished another school year or are about to do it.  Do we teachers have into account that we have to also educate our students, and so in accordance with their parents’ views?  We also have to educate them in freedom. If we educate our students like they were robots… we are doing wrong with them.  I teach adults. Yet something similar in some way may be applied to teens. I believe that a lot of English may be learned by reading books – like Krashen himself puts it himself. And, you know?, I say to those learners of mine they have to purchase graded readers or unabridged books. On their own.  As well they have to massively and intensively read, on their own. Beside what we actually do in the classroom to learn English. On their own, I said, by themselves. I leave them on their own.  Something I do is I encourage them to read, and when they’ve finished that graded reader, then, come on, get a new one. Or an unabridged book, which for the...

  Are you a teacher yourself? I mean, a second or foreign language teacher?  I’m going to tell you something today which hopefully may help you with your lessons. Let’s see to it.  It’s common to say that we language teachers have to have our students practice the language they’re learning and we should not confine our teaching to teaching language facts. And that’s okay. We should not confine our teaching to grammar and little else.  Yep, that’s right. However, let us not think we cannot teach those grammar facts, like for example verbal tenses or the use of the comparative of irregular adjectives.  Thus, if I’m teaching a bit of grammar or lexis, I don’t have to think I’m doing something wrong. Come on, as well you have to give your dear students language facts and grammar and the like, because those students do need those facts… to be able to precisely communicate in the target language. And above all if they are adults or even teens.  They do need the l...

  I’m back with you again, my fellow readers.  I wanted to tell you something that may be of any interest to you, both if you are prospective or novice teachers, or otherwise experienced ones.  I’ve been thinking lately that, for a teacher, practice and experience are so paramount important. And as well another key point to bear in mind when teaching in the classroom or remotely teaching is that we should have our students in mind when lesson planning.  Something you can do before the actual lesson planning is just to think on your specific and real students.  On a parallel way you may know that when our students have to write an essay, well, you know, they should have a reader in mind.  Equally when the teacher is about to plan a lesson – and every lesson ought to be planned – he or she may think, Well, let’s see how my students are in class and how last lesson worked actually.  And I invite you to write a few points before the actual planning, consid...

  As you may know, I have greatly written on this blog about foreign or second language autonomous learners . And that’s ok, for it’s them who really really really learn and acquire that language.  Today I wanted to say, however, that the teacher is just necessary and essential too.  Furthermore I would say that the language lesson has to be student-centered… but also teacher-centered.  We have to recognize that a good teacher may well help and boost his or her students’ learning.  I have learned a lot of English over time, yet I am very grateful to my teachers over the years: they were just so great, and have helped me learn that tongue.  As a matter of fact a teacher also may excite and stimulate his or her students’ eagerness for learning the language. It’s something of what I try hard in my classes to adults, and these ones are great language learners, yep they are.  As well the teacher may shorten the way to learners, because he or she may provide...

  We may be teachers, okay? We may also be educators. But do we know what to educate is? Well, maybe we already know it, or know something about it.  Where I want to aim? Educating is getting the best from my students, yet also it is getting the best to them.  Some people say kind of, Well, we have to get the best from those learners. Yep, but also we have to take knowledge and other things to them.  Otherwise we will not obtain the best from them.  This seems clear in children’s case: we can try and get the best from them, but alike we have to provide knowledge and others to them, because they were born with no knowledge at all.  Spanish philosopher and pedagogue Gregorio Luri puts it in that way: the teacher has to provide knowledge to their students.  It doesn’t seem sound to get some children into a classroom and naively try and get the best from them, like they already were wise people.  Let’s give them knowledge and other things. For that w...