This week's topic is:
★☆"What do you like the most and what do you like the least about teaching English?" ★☆
★☆"What do you like the most and what do you like the least about teaching English?" ★☆
Dear teachers,
To answer this question, please add a comment to this post.
6 comments:
This is from JH. If you do not have a blog on this site, when you post a comment please choose その他 under 個人情報を選択。
Muchas Gracias,
JH
I was very happy and satified when some of my students decided to major in Englsih in Universities being insired by me, but to teach Englsih to students who don't want study it at all is a disaster. We teachers sometimes have to threaten them to study, which I hate most.
If you want to teach English or any subjects in school, at first you have to be respeted and get student's trusts. If you can get their trusts and respects, students will lsiten to you soon. That will make your class succses. When you have your class, please try to make the plan to make all students can enjoy your class at least 5 minutes. You have to explain with very simple words. And you have to know what type of student you will teach. Active or not. They like English or not. Teaching plan is not for you, for students. Remenber the time when you were junior high students or high school students. What kinds of classes were good for you?
Hi this is from Atz in Hokkaido.
I teach English in a small high school in the south west part of Hokkaido.
What I like the best about being an English teacher is....I can open the door for them toward the outer world! Yes kids, it DOES exsist. This tiny island is not the only place you can go on the earth!!!
And what I like the least is...
Well, it's not about English. Usually I am very upset when a kid behaves badly and talks me back.
Teacher is a good job but you have to wait for years till you see what you have done. That's great and annoying at the same time. Sorry, probably I am not answering your question,JH?
Atz
teaching english as a communicative tool and as a life-enhancing ability is quite rewarding. teaching english as a rule/grammar-based subject can be a bummer...
I teach English privately and usually one-on-one, at our farm on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Most of my students are young adults from Japan.
Students live with us as a part of our family and join in all our social and farm activities.
I teach mainly by using activities such as having an Aussie Farmhouse cooking morning, handmaking bread, cakes and biscuits; going on a bush walk and stopping to check out everything of interest that I've noticed (but often the city student hasn't)such as unusual seedpods, flowers, bark, or tiny creatures; visiting Seal Bay and sitting eating our lunch while watching the sealions; making crafts from natural materials we've found on a hike; doing some vegetable gardening; going on a night walk to see our nocturnal native animals or even sitting in the dark under a clear sky looking at the myriads of brilliant stars.
The student chooses the activities that interest him or her.
I encourage lots of conversation as we do the activity and keep written track of mistakes made. If appropriate I correct the mistake there and then, many others I note and we talk about them later. Afterwards we make a list of all the new words the student encounters during the activity and sometimes go into the history of the word or just laugh at how crazy English spelling is while I explain why the word is spelt that way.
By using activities the student uses most or all of his or her senses while learning and has lots of memory pegs to help retain what's been learnt.
Other times we just sit under a shady tree by a creek somewhere, eat a picnic snack or lunch (we do lots of eating!), or sit at the kitchen table or on the back verandah watching the farm animals, and converse on topics of interest to the student. Again I correct, make note of mistakes, weaknesses in grammar or information I need to look up for the student. When a student asks an English question I frequently use pencil and paper to draw or write the answer while I explain it, grab something in the house to SHOW the student the answer as well as tell them, or I may even act out the answer.
I might add that I am far from being a great conversationalist, good actor or fast thinker. In the past I was painfully shy, hated to make a mistake in public and believed everyone else was better and had more rights than I, so I feel I have empathy for those are shy or lacking in confidence.
My students are never bored or go to sleep on me, are rarely reticent in speaking, sometimes cry when it comes time to leave and return to Japan (including several guys who have afterwards admitted to it to when emailing me from back home), and say they have learnt heaps, and had a huge amount of fun in learning not only English but about alternative ways of living and doing things, nature, ecology, the Australian culture and lifestyle, personal relationships (after a few days here many of them open up with personal problems), the meaning of life and new ways of looking at it.
I've had many students who found out about me after spending months at language schools and improving very little because they spent all their time with Japanese friends speaking Japanese, instead of trying to speak English. They've come here for a few weeks and learnt LOTS. One young man even said that before he'd come to me he'd been afraid to go back to Japan because he'd learnt so little and his father was going to be furious.
It would be pretty difficult to teach as I do, in a classroom situation with a number of students, but perhaps a few of my ideas could spark some ideas that would work for you.
What do I love most about teaching English? I love language and it gives me great joy to share the things I've learned with others who also want to learn. I love to see my students' growing confidence that they CAN speak English and feel it is a privilege to be a part of the process. I love the new and often lasting friendships made with young people from Japan. Like least? - I haven't had the experience, but know that I'd absolutely hate to try and teach English to anyone who wasn't interested in learning!
If you have any students who are thinking of going overseas to study English at a language school, please tell them about me.
Post a Comment