Experiences of a teacher of English

  We have agreed that you may be a foreign or second language teacher, and you may think that you have to foster communication in class, and not only grammar rules, though these latter ones are of importance anyway.  Well, the good teacher asks his or her students in class so there may arise a lot of communication. Ok, that seems the right way.  And that good teacher asks in some special way, let me explain.  He or she addresses those questions tactfully, bearing in mind he is addressing persons, with a lot of dignity, the one any person deserves. Any student is unique too.  He asks questions or anyway he prompts to create that communication, which is among persons.  In other words, that teacher does not confine himself to implement the textbook activities, yet he gives, with those questions, affection and benevolence love, seeking what is good for the students. Affection, yet with nothing posh or silly or ridiculous, but with prudence at the same time....

  If I want to learn a language, well, I have to practice all four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  Okay. You may be a foreign or second language teacher, and may have a textbook or course-book to apply in class and even useful for your students to learn that language. And you may have for instance only two lessons per week and per class of students.  Definitely two classes a week is not enough to master that tongue.  You as a learner ought to put in six or seven days of the week to learn it, dedicating perhaps some minutes to that school subject. Well, better it’s to devote like half an hour or even more to that learning. At least some minutes.  With some of my students – they’re adults – we have such a textbook, yet I encourage them to read in English, for example a graded reader their choice; some of them can afford to read unabridged books.  Reading, reading is necessary.  It gives us the vocab and grammar we need...

  Let’s proceed into a new point. You may be a second or foreign language teacher, like me. And you wish to carry out your teaching effectively, right? And you may be subject to fulfill a curriculum, or syllabus, or program, right? Anyway, let me tell you that although we may be kind of obliged to fulfill that program, I think we should try to lesson-plan for our dear students to really learn and acquire that language.  I mean, ok, you plan your lesson with a set of activities; well, what about thinking, How could I implement those exercises so that they actually learn and acquire the tongue?  In other words, each lesson ought to be for them, the students, a firm step forward in learning the language plus improving their communicative skills in that language.  That step may be small apparently, but one step plus another plus another … in following lessons make a big figure!  Even you may have more freedom to plan the kind of activities you think they are more ap...

  Do our dear students ever think? I gave that title to a previous post, remember?  And the point is that we as teachers have to teach our students to think, to engage their brains, to learn also how to study and learn.  They have to get the most from their textbook: thus we have to teach them to study.  As well we can elicit what they do for studying their textbook, so their classmates will learn new and sound ways to study, perhaps.  By the way, at many schools and in some countries they are starting to think that… it’s better for the students to have a paper book than a tablet.  Ok, let’s proceed.  We teachers also have to make them think: we oughtn’t to give all the stuff too much digestible: they have to learn to study and draw their own conclusions.  Something we may implement in class is to think with them. I mean, you know, the teacher can think aloud and so his or her dear students will see how to think.  Even something I do with my ...

  I also know that most of you are or may be busy and committed teachers. I was wondering if write about this topic or not, but in the end I’ve decided to write about it, yes, let’s go with it.  As I said, you may be hectic teachers, yet I presume that you devote some time of your valuable and precious time to just thinking about what you do in class, so you can improve your teaching work, also precious as it is, indeed. Because you wish your dear students learn effectively.  I mean, the happy teacher – busy he or she may be though – knows how to extract some time for thinking about their dear students and how they can learn better and more effectively.  I knew a teacher who used to dedicate some time for example at the end of the school year to think and write down some points about his lessons: how they had proceeded, you know, how they’d improved that past year, how could they improve next year, what points are paramount for bettering those lessons, what points I ...

  I know that you want to become a good teacher. One who makes his or her students think, right?  This latter thing may seem obvious, but do our dear students really think? Do they invest all their cleverness capabilities upon learning in the best possible way?  In order to achieve our dear students would think, and more if they are kids, we have to teach them how to think. If they settle down to study their books, we may be heading in the right direction.  We as teachers may think in a loud voice, say, to teach them to think, in class.  I was remembering that when I taught kids at the first school where I began to teach, we had, in accordance to their parents, there in the nineties of last century, a plan for educating them. It was not one more school subject, like math or literature or biology, but they were weekly sessions about topics where we made them think: ethics, how to solve problems, virtues and values, situations they might face as teens, etcetera. I...

  Today I wanted to share with you several points which can help both teach and learn a second or foreign language.  For example I’m still learning English and I know that I will finish my days on earth by still learning: When can you say, well, ok, I’ve already finished to learn Croatian or Polish or Spanish?  Something I’m doing lately is reading an interesting book. I confess I’ve been reading it – with some stops anyway – for almost a year. The book, about the Apollo missions to put the first man on the moon and written by a space historian, is a volume of more than six hundred pages and I’ve been reading it since last December.  You know, it was a present from the Wise Men or Kings on 2018 or so Christmas when we were going to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely.  Then, in 2019, when the 50 th anniversary, I read it more quickly – namely several months – and now I’m studying it, let’s say, because I try an...