Cultivating your English #15: Teachers as learners, learners as teachers
❤️“To teach is to learn twice.”❤️ Joseph Joubert.
I love this simple quote from Joubert although I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Personally I have always tried to learn from my students. Most of my coaching/teaching expertise of any real value I have learnt from my students.
Although your students may not be your best teachers- according to Robin Williams “Time is the best teacher, unfortunately, it kills all of its students.” 😬🤯
Therefore if you can approach your teaching/coaching/supporting with a learner mindset you can expect a rewarding experience. Also the people you help will probably treat you better than “time”! (Unless you decide to help a serial killer of course!)😅
Talking about teaching, in response to my guateque comment, Angel wrote this: “I’ve been trying to teach my kids some vernacular “Mexicanismos” only to discover, from friends & family in Mexico, that nobody uses them any more…”
He went on to explain that one of these words which has fallen out of fashion was “chido” to refer to something as “cool”. What do you think, could we rescue it and breathe new life into it?! 😎
He also shared an interesting article he wrote for the Financial Times back in 2007 where he talks about the gatekeepers of the Spanish language: https://authory.com/AngelGurriaQuintana/Viva-el-espanol
Here are some more useful tools you might want to recommend to the person you are helping, and maybe use yourself of course:
https://ororo.tv/en/channels A free website with hundreds of videos that include interactive subtitles. The translations aren’t always perfect but can be very helpful. You can also add words to your “personal dictionary”.
https://www.elllo.org/ offers over 3,000 free listening activities. Teachers and students can access lessons for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners.
Who hates exams? Why not take a look at this Mr Bean sketch as a reminder that however bad a situation, it can always be worse! https://en.islcollective.com/video-lessons/mr-bean-exams There are hundreds of other video lessons on this site.
Do you know of any useful websites/apps/strategies for improving your English?
Thanks for reading and see you in #16! 🙏😊