I was born in Galicia in 1988 and had studied a History degree there, before I started moving
around the world and finally ended up in Barcelona, a few years ago. I would say that I am a
relaxed, open-minded person, with a high critical view of the world, who doesn’t believe there are
absolute truths and lies.
I was always passionate about other ways of seeing the world, different cultures and different ways
of life. And thus, I found myself learning other languages as a way to develop those interests. I truly
believe that a language is not only a tool to communicate, but also the most basic expression of any
culture: a language is both our key to open doors and a hammer to give shape to reality. This is
something that I perceived as I learned new languages, I was changing my way of communicate
with the world around me, but as well my vision of it.
Given the fact that I am mad about information and stories, teaching was always one of my
interests, but I always considered it as a great responsibility. Teaching people is not only an activity
that goes in one direction, is something alive that should transform both teacher and student. If a
teacher does not learn anything from his pupils, then teaching is dull and dead.
Having said that, is not the same telling stories, master skills and crafts, or learning languages.
Learning a language is a huge step into a new world, because it gives us the first and primarily fact
that makes us who we are, humans. This is communication. So I see teaching languages as a way of
letting people express themselves and see the world in other manners.
That’s why I see teacher’s role as a facilitator. Of course, they’re the authority, but that doesn’t
mean to me that they should control what students should learn every time. But this is not that I see
the teacher into a passive role. We need to ensure that students feel comfortable; to encourage them
to participate, to accept their mistakes and be eager to learn from them; as well to push their self-
steem. Either we build rapport with them or either we fail as teachers.
A comfortable environment is a must to achieve this. Small details are important in many ways, so
much that some methodologies (like suggestopedia) are almost entirely based on them. Where and
how to seat, for example, is something to consider, preferably beign near to students, in a closed
space away from any distraction, so we can create the proper atmosphere.
Sitting in circle helps to create the sensation of a group where everybody is at the same level of
importance and can participate in the class. Interaction between students is one of our duties, make
them arrive to their own conclusions and help each other will ensure their learning. Cooperation is
always better strategy to evolve than competition. Anecdotes, games and laughter are direct ways to
remember new concepts. Discover something from a funny situation guarantee that we won’t forget
that.
There are different reasons to learn a new language and we, as teachers, must bear that in mind
always. We need to adapt our knowledge to student’s necessities, for me, that’s the key. Adaptation
to different levels, different goals and different possibilities is what will transform us into a good
teacher. So, we need to read and we need to ask what students need and what students want.
Different goals and different levels mean different methodologies and different approaches.
I believe that we should follow the natural order of acquisition of a language, focusing more on oral
practicing (listening and speaking), not leaving reading and writing abandoned, but paying moreattention to them on a further moment, when the students already feel able to understand and
communicate basic facts and instructions. We, as people, want to be understood, so that’s what
needs to be our main focus. As well, using images, visual incentives and repetition may help more
than just start explaining grammatic rules to novices.
I prefer to use English as the main language in the class. I know the barriers and pitfalls that
students may find along the way, as English is not my native language and I am still learning it
everyday. In Spain, English lessons in school tend to be given in Spanish and focusing just in
grammar, using the grammar translation method, and I think that we already overcome this way of
teaching.
English language surround us in every feature of our lives, moreover, it’s growing, and it doesn’t
seems this trend is going to change. From music to computer language, neologisms are being
introduced in our dairy lives, so, in one way or another, everybody is familiar with English. Our
challenge is to motivate students to incorporate the language completely, to not feel ashamed of
committing mistakes and see their lessons as something valuable and useful for their lives.
People says that you master a language when you start dreaming in that language. If we encourage
our pupils to surround themselves in an English environment, if we can adapt their ears and mouths
to speak and hear it, that’s our best victory. Listening to songs and translating them, watching non
dubbed films, reading books and newspapers, all this normal activities can transform into something
that enrich students’ knowledge and we must show them this.
Of course different levels, even different moods suppose different methods. Some strategies are
softer or easier to please a boring class, other can give the impulse to take seriously a class that was
going down and a level that was not increasing. I do not reject the grammar translation
methodology entirely, but if we can make the students perceive grammatic structures by themselves,
we obviously did a better job. Learning by intuition helps incorporate a language much better than
complicated explanations about functions and clauses.
Chomsky said that all human beings share a similar cognitive structure to learn languages, so it is
possible to make our pupils learn for themselves how to accurately create sentences and write texts,
acting better as guides and not like answering machines. Following this, I prefer not to write too
much and let students guess how a word is written, but as English have so many irregularities about
spelling, I am conscious that avoid to write responses and doubts may not be always possible.
Teacher’s adaptability is really important, so. I use to think that if just one student can’t understand
a thing, may be his fault because he is not putting enough effort or interest, but if is more than one
or two, responsibility must be found on the teacher. I am an absolute believer on the summative
assessment, as language learning is a progressive thing.
Saying all this, I prefer to elaborate a syllabus focused around topics of discussion, to highlight the
utility of the language as a communicative tool. It needs, once again, to be adapted to students’
needs. Beginners may need more vocabulary in order not to feel frustrated when they want to
express their feelings and opinions, but once we have enough knowledge to carry on, we should
pass our classes elaborating speeches, learning how to discuss and present our points of view,
sharing and comparing ideas and listening and ordering what we heard from the world around us. If
we do all of that, students are incorporating a second language in a more natural, useful and holisticway. For that, I would recommend to do homework, not in the sense of filling exercises, but more
like using English in other aspects of students life, to not reduce the language to a specific moment
of the day when they face the teacher an hour or two a week. Information doesn’t remain in our
memory unless we actively give it a good use.
If we don’t know how the students will be, and even knowing that, is important to have couple of
different exercises, even more than we may think we’ll go over in an entire class, just in case, we
see that students are not getting to the point, because they’re not yet prepared, or because they’re
losing their attention. This is where our adaptability plays a big role. As well, we need to know
when to correct and when to pass on, as sometimes correcting may ending up introducing a
complete new topic that has nothing to do with the main goal of the lesson and will just complicate
it more without any big result. We need to drew a map in our head about how we introduce lessons
and how we look for student’s feedback to confirm they acquired new grammar examples, because
if we let the students talk all the time is a good thing, yes, but as well an easy way to flow away
from the thing we wanted them to learn.