The English Corner

More than a post I would like to share a reflection that as teachers we might do or apply in our academic life. I know that nowadays we are busy as teachers, I mean we have to plan like every year, semester, or even month. Besides, we have to make the activities and if you are a teacher where you are teaching kids and teenager, then you have to create materials, resources, print a thousand of papers. When you already have a plan, your resources and of course that ugly CD player or if you are more modern then your Bluetooth speaker. Then when you are teaching a student is the clown of the class, or other just did something to other. Worst case scenario: one vomited and then either you clean or wait until someone else cleans that, depending on the school you work at. When it's the hunting season (AKA Exam season), it´s not a real pleasure because you have to check many tests that you fed up with checking them, and the bonus points: if you let some extra assignments then mor...

As teachers, we are examples to follow, we need to teach more than just a content, we need to teach values or some aspects to our students in order to help them to continue growing as humans, it´s our responsibility to make them think and not only in the academic aspect. However, we need to start by ourselves as teachers and apply the next values so our students can follow our examples.   Integrity                                                                                     It's necessary for a teacher to be honest with his/her job role and responsibility. S...

Hello my little grasshoppers, today I have a controversial topic. The topic is: "Things teachers should never do", I know that as teachers we are not perfect; however, doing the actions that I will tell you next could get you in troubles like: losing your job, having issues with administration or even legal issues. The first one is trying to be friends with your students. The main issue here is that as teachers we need to be friendly but not friends with our students. When we get along really well with them and we establish that "friendship", the counterpoint will be of course that students are going to lose respect for the teacher and discipline problems, academic or further problems can occur, making a snowball effect. So avoid being their friend but always be polite and friendly. The next one is a really bad habit, that is gossiping around. Your main job is to teach you students, not being the next TV host that is just saying bad things about the others...

Hello my little grasshoppers, on a previous entry we talked about some types of teachers we could find in a classroom. Now we are going to talk about our students, some kinds of students we find or we can find in our classroom. 1. The Pet These students take front seats in the class and laugh at our jokes. They haunt teachers in school halls or torture them after class is over. These students will always try to help you, they will ask you even dumb questions as long as you are the teacher. The thing is, in my personal opinion, these guys are really annoying and you can get in trouble with them. So my recommendation always avoid them because once you let the help you or ask you questions they won´t stop. 2. The Hard Worker These students are highly motivated. They know what they want and how to achieve their goal. It´s common that these students are not the best in the class or the most intelligent; however, they have something that encourage them and most of the times they...

Remember those sitcoms or movies where this character appears and everyone immediately loves him and everything he does goes right, saving the world or people? Or those superhero movies that you can see Captain America or Ironman being what everyone would like to have and be. Even in real life, in a soccer team you can see outstanding players that looks like they are not from this world, and in teaching? Do we have like a super or ideal teacher? There are certain teachers that seem to captivate students, win over parents, and get along well with administration.   It depends in every teacher, but the main characteristics that this "Super-Teacher" should have are the next ones: Students want to learn from them, and they keep contact with them even after school is over. They inspire trust and students of course will follow them since they know what they teach, and they have that skill of making students feel happy and at the same time they learn. Parents want to com...

What's up my little grasshoppers, today we are going to take a trip (in the good sense) and we are going to talk about some types of teacher we used to have when we were studying, those teachers that we won´t forget because they had some unique characteristics that made us feel good or bad depending on the situation. So let´s start with this list: The "Sergeant Teacher": This teacher is well known by students because is strict, leaves a lot of homework and is always grumpy, you wouldn´t dare to ask anything because you knew that he or she will nag you before he or she could answer your question. The tests with this teacher were so difficult and basically only the nerds would approve or pass those difficult tests. Besides, when this teacher arrived to the classroom everyone paid attention and didn´t make any noise, you could see your classmates quiet and scared. The "Cool Teacher": All students were so happy when they knew this teacher will be in the clas...

Let´s admit it, technology has made huge changes in our lives, a few years ago having a cell phone was a thing from another world and a   luxury now, having a cell phone is a necessity and this has caused that either we adapt with these new changes or we are getting stuck in the old age, making us to be "out of date" and of course in some cases we can have difficulties with the new technology. The same happens in teaching, we need to adapt in order to have a meaningful class. Do you remember those times when English teachers had the stereotype of carrying a big CD Player and lots of books? or people used to say that English classes were boring because   let´s get real, English teachers are also called as boring or obsolete teachers. We need to use the tech tools, and we can use trends so our students can really have a meaningful class with no problems. As teachers we need to be informed not only in new pedagogy techniques, but also in technology. Now I´m going to share ...

All people need to be corrected at times. The person who generally does the correcting is the one responsible for ensuring that the individual is developing properly. There are different levels of correction, though. Sometimes, the correction from the teacher only needs to be a small act, a look, a shake of the head, or a tap on the desk. These are used when the student just needs a quick, subtle, reminder that the action is incorrect. This allows for correction without issue. Many times, that is enough. In other cases, the correction needs to be made clear, maybe the first didn´t work or the behavior is more complex than the first situations. An example would be if students were disrupting instruction with talking. Usually, respectfully asking the students to refocus their attention on the content is enough. But what happens when the behaviors are constant and it affects the class development and classroom environment? Should we as teachers scold them or just talk to them like...

Being a teacher is hard and can be very stressful. There are students who always cause trouble and are very disruptive. Teachers are forced to stop teaching the class to deal with them, taking up valuable class time. Teachers have the risk of being threatened by their students and need to develop strategies and tactics so students don´t interrupt the class and can give the class with no problem. Either the teacher is feared or loved when he or she implements these tactics and that´s exactly what we are going to talk about. The first one is fear. There are some benefits in having a fearful classroom environment: the classroom is quiet, people can concentrate, students can know that there is little to no time taken away by disruptions, and there is less stress for teachers and some students. A quiet classroom is a hardworking classroom. In a fearful classroom, students know that any student who causes disruptions will be punished. A fearful classroom environment reduces stress to te...

One of the biggest problems nowadays with our students is the discipline enforcement, it seems that students are not obeying some teachers and sometimes we don´t know how to manage some situations, to make it worse, if we implement a punishment, parents are complaining or the school´s authority can question our actions. So today I´m going to tell you some tips that have worked for me as a teacher in order to maintain the discipline in the classroom. Prepare for Disruptions A typical school day is loaded with disruptions, from announcements to a student acting out in class. Teachers need to be flexible and develop a series of plans to deal with anticipated classroom disruptions, which take students in-class time. Prepare for transitions and potential disruptions. Consider the following suggestions: Identify the typical times for student disruptions and misbehavior, usually at the start of the lesson or class period, when topics change or at the conclusion of a lesson ...

W hen we talk about Management, most of the times it comes to our minds a company or a business, since Management is often related with an enterprise. However, this concept can be applied to education as well. We call it "Classroom Management" and is the  variety of skills and techniques that teachers use to keep students organized, orderly, focused, attentive, on task, and academically productive during a class. But, what are the benefits of Classroom Managament? Well, some of the beneficts are: Effective Teaching Classroom management strategies help to create an organized classroom environment that is effective to teaching. Students know the expectations in different types of learning situations. This will allow the teacher to plan the specific activities in order students can accomplish these expectations. Effective use of time One of the steps of Classroom Management is planning, if we as teachers already have planned our activities, then we know mo...