Experiences of a teacher of English

  The good teacher must know how to plan his or her lessons. They have learned over the years. Now I’m referring to second or foreign language teachers. They learn how to plan efficient lessons for their dear students to learn effectively.  And there’s a plus. They achieve to plan in rather short time.  That kind of teacher plans his classes with their actual students in mind. He wants for them to really learn and acquire that target language.  He knows how to get the most from a class text or a photocopy he has gotten from his resources – they may be modest, though.  He learns how to be imaginative and he’ll accomplish – as I said – to get the most from a photocopy.  And he plans several activities from that sheet of paper. For example, as follows.  First he plans a listening comprehension activity while his students do not have the copy yet. And he has planned a lead-in activity for that listening, for example, a first exercise of predicting what the...

  Today I’m trying to say something that may help you if you teach college students or adults or even kids.  Something I’ve lately observed is that the teacher has to let those students do, he or she has to allow them to do, by combining authority with indulgence, authority with clever lenience.  First premise: the teacher must become an authority, a moral authority in class. And that’s gotten if the teacher becomes somebody who can say things that positively influence upon his or her students. That teacher achieves that things fall on good soil, only if he works hard and sets an example of a person who has something that really makes his students learn how to work fine. I mean, that teacher is someone you can rely on, because he has gotten that authority, which is moral authority.  Do you know what I mean? I’ve seen teachers whose students do what they are told to do because their teacher is a moral authority and has prestige – he is somebody that deserves to be lis...

  We may be starting a new school year, at least in the north hemisphere of our dear planet. And we have to take care of it – our planet I mean.  And in that new academic year we may find us teachers planning our lessons.  I want to tell you something about that issue, in case it may help you teachers.  Lesson planning has to be practical and brief, rather brief. Before I think of the activities I want to implement in class next day I think of my dear students, so I plan with them in mind.  Plus I wonder what they expect from me or from our English course, and what they need mostly. It takes me just few minutes, and sometimes, well, often, I write down those needs, aims, and expectations.  And then I plan the lesson properly.  I feel that in that way my students are kind of more satisfied with what we do in class. Have a nice day. Well, hang on, something else I do when lesson planning is to ask myself what few things are important now for my students ...

  What are good lessons like? Let’s try and mull something about that question, from what Gregorio Luri states plus my own experience. He is a Spanish teacher, pedagogue, and philosopher.  Some teachers say classes must be fun.  Are you sure? Well, classes shouldn’t be a bore or drag, but fun at all? A bit fun may be okay.  They have to be well taught, for the teacher has planned them nice and competently. That’s the first premise. And planned with his or her students in mind.  And that teacher has to speak well, so his or her students put in and take in good language.  I think that if the teacher acts that way, more likely his lessons will be consistent and interesting. And the classroom atmosphere must be serene, so the students can work, learn, study, and grow up well and with no stridencies. That’s also applicable if your learners are adults, like in my case. In that environment those people can work intensely.  Thus over time that kind of work is ...

  It seems that a communicative approach to teaching/learning a second or foreign language may be the best, and actually most teachers apply it in the classroom.  Thus the learners would learn and acquire that language by communicating in the target tongue, and also they would learn that language in order to communicate both in and out of the classroom.  As well their dear teacher would not confine the classes to giving language facts but to communication (plus language facts, if you wish, of course - they are necessary).  Okay.  However, that teacher cannot confine the tests and exams to measure grammar learning and other language facts.  If the classes were communication, the stuff measured at those tests and exams has to be also communicative. A few questions can be devoted to grammar, anyway, but also in accordance to what already done in class.  The students shouldn’t encounter questions in the tests which they haven’t been trained for.  Othe...

  So we have – continuing what said on the previous post – that we can learn a foreign or second language, but also we can acquire it. Subconsciously. Similar to what little children do.  And we language learners have to receive a comprehensible input, to acquire the language. Thus we will be exposed to that input, which should be a bit above my actual level, thus we can proceed and advance in that language learning.  All this entails practical points for the classroom.  Remember all that was already said by Stephen Krashen from the seventies and eighties of last century. A great fellow this expert I guess.  He also said that you can learn & acquire the target tongue by reading books, and this is good news – I do like reading books and articles.  He puts that fiction books, like novels, help you a great deal in those learning & acquiring: those books bring everyday lexis and sayings and kinds of expressions. And even it seems better if you select th...

  We teachers have to learn from the experts. If we want to teach our dear students fine.  So Stephen Krashen – an expert on learning a second or foreign language himself – put his first theories in the seventies and eighties of last century. According to them we know that we can learn a language, ok, but – and it’s good news – as well we can acquire that dear language. Subconsciously.  We can acquire a language without being aware we are learning that tongue.  For that we have to receive comprehensible input in that language, for example by reading a fiction book we have selected ourselves, not necessarily an assigned class read.  Of course also we can learn that language: it’s when we study its grammar and such in an aware way we are learning.  And – if you let me say so – to produce that language (to speak and write) we can hand those both learned and acquired languages, which is what I note I do when I speak or write in English – which is not my mother ...