Andrea Consonni
Certified English teacher profile

Andrea Consonni TEFL certificate Andrea TEFL certificate

PROFILE


I like to transmit the passion that I have for the language to the students. I'm an empathic person so I can understand students feelings. I'm an every-day learner.


PROJECTS


Languages: Italian - Native, Spanish - Proficiency, Portuguese - Intermediate, Catalan - Beginner, Russian - Beginner. Projects: Interested in teaching in environments with difficult behaviour students (ex. violent suburbs)

My teaching approach

In my teaching metodology/approach, I would like to have two parts during my classes; the first part it will be a very comunicative where I will ask questions to the students and they will have to repeat what I have just said or answer to the questions. The second part will be used to make them talking between each other in order to facilitate themselves to communicate, it will be than a Direct Method.. To make my students learn as fast as possible, I will organize my areas of language in the following order of importance: speaking,listening,reading and writing ; at first, engaging all the students in the class giving the same importance to everyone, and sometimes use some of the students more prepared or with more talent in learning languages as co-teachers by helping the other students that they have more difficulties. Than it will come the part of reading, where I will read text for them and they willl have to listen to my pronunciation as well, than they will start reading as well normally with dialogues so they can interact with me and between each other as well. It will be directing the class at first and than try slowly to "vanish" till they get the total control of the class. I will correct errors straight away but regarding mistakes I will let them go, especially if they are building the sentence, so they will not get frustrated and nervous if they get stopped frequently. I will bring them to self-correction as thought by the Oxbridge teachers asking them to repeat me the word or the words that they have done wrong, if they can't remember it I will tell them and they will have to repeat them. I will give them time to think at the beginning but I will decrease it little by little by the time their level increase, so I suppose that in this way they will start thinking in English rather of their native language,as indicated in the direct method. I will focus less in grammar and more in vocabulary, because I think that is more important to improve vocabulary first rather than grammar. I will write words on a whiteboard and I will make them read and repeat words with the correct pronunciation and make write them. I will start with some grammar where there will be a lot of communication between the students, moving than to the vocabulary where I will speak less and finally end a lesson with a topic where I will push them into a conversation between them. For example, in a P4 level about phrasal verbs I will introduce the lesson by mentioning sentences with phrasal verbs to the students, they will listen to me and than they will start interacting with me about; later I will write some phrasal verbs on a whiteboard while I will spell them and the students they will have to write them down and finally I will give them some situations/role playing so they can build a conversation using phrasal verbs; using this method I suppose they will know how to use,to spell,to pronounce,to read and to write phrasal verbs. I will praise them not to much with words but by smilings. I will not use any online material but just a whiteboard and photocopies with text or images.I will be the authority in the class in the beginning but in the end I will let them asking me questions about what they have just learnt and they will have to tell me if my answers are correct or not. I will be more severe with students that they are going well in class and with students that they have a lot of talent in learning languages but they're just lazy, and I will be less severe with people that they want to learn the language but they struggle because they have a lot of difficulties in learning it. Regarding the age of the groups, with children I will be more strict because they are great in memorizing words but it's difficult to make them pay attention, with teenagers or boys/girls I will be more severe but I will let them express whatever thing they want to say, in order to understand immediately the personality of each one of them, I will make them understand that not paying attention to the lession is wasted time for me and for them as well, but I will explain them that at their age I was exactly like them. Teaching to adults I think it will be for me the easiest grouo, I will be more calm and relaxed, and mixing seriousness with some parts of humour. I believe that teaching to adults will help me to increase more my general knowledge, I would like to transmit the passion that I have for the language to the students, so if there will be some of them which is bored or not interested in the class, they will be more stimulated to be involved during the class activities, I think is the best solution to make them put the best outside. I will tell them that learning a new language is like to be a new born-baby so everything that they will learn is like to figure out a world full of new things. I've developed this idea comparing all the experiences that I had in the past while I was learning English. In High School; we had a textbook and we use to translate words literally from English to the native language, and between the 80% and the 90% of the class the native language was the language spoken, so between translations and explanations in the native language almost every student forgot how to use English properly. From that point I've decided that all my future classes wouldn't be taught in other languages but just in English, from the beginning to the very end. This is for me a very effective way to teach English to people, I have to get them to think in English as quick as possible as they enter into the class, as mentiones is the direct method, in order that they will not waste their time thinking on the literal translation that will make them doing more errors. I think that teachers can evolve by listening their students needs and listen to what the sudents say to make them feel like teachers too.