Sunday, August 2, 2015

What I have learned from teaching English




  1. If you are bored or overwhelmed you won't learn a language
    1. Learning conjugation tables or getting grammatical concepts crammed into your head is a sure fire way to lose interest in learning a new language, and once that interest is lost you can't learn a new language.
    2. When you give students too much information at once, they will feel overwhelmed and won't know where to start with the language, and will become frustrated and possibly give up.
    3. To prevent boredom, I have my students play a lot of games, and never lecture for a very long time without going onto an activity. To prevent overwhelming the students, my lessons are short and cover at most 3 different but related topics.
  2. Most students will rise to your expectations
    1. In my class I have all different levels of English, from very beginner to intermediate.
    2. I teach to the intermediate students, and have high expectations for everyone.
    3. When teaching to the intermediate students to prevent losing the students at lower levels, offer plenty of group exercises where the intermediate students can help the students with a more basic level of English.
  3. Use anything other than Spanish to communicate your idea.
    1. I truly believe the reason I didn't learn anything from my 4 years of Spanish in School was because the teacher spoke English during the majority of the class.
    2. It can be hard to communicate ideas, grammar, directions, vocab, etc. Without Spanish, especially to beginning students, this is where you use body language, examples, and anything at your disposal to convey the idea.

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