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ESL forum >
Games, activities and teaching ideas > What do you remember from your own English lessons?
What do you remember from your own English lessons?
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MarionG
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What do you remember from your own English lessons?
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I was wondering, what is it you remember from your English classes when you were studying ?(mainly for non natives...)
Personally I started studying English only in high school (yes I am that old). I must have learned a lot of English since most of my university studies were already in English but I remember almost nothing from the lessons themselves. To be honest, I remember only two things; the word �gerund � (don �t ask me why) and I remember that we learned the song "Streets of London". The song really made an impression on me, and so did the fact that the teacher brought us a song as a tool to learn. Maybe that is the reason I work a lot with songs now that I am a teacher myself.
I am interested to hear what you remember from English class and why? I think checking what we ourselves remember might help to find ways of teaching students really connect with.
ps. I brought streets of London to my 6th graders and told them of my connection to the song. I was afraid they might think it is too drippy and old fashioned but they really liked it! |
23 Sep 2010
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Mietz
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Good question!
I was very bad at school - between 3 (middle) and 4 (bad). We were "a year in between" with the wall coming down in the east, so everything was very confusing. We jumped books and levels and I never managed to catch up and didn �t like English as a subject. I remember spending hours practising the difference between adverbs and adjectives and where to put them in a sentence. I still failed the test. :-( After 6 years of English I came to Scotland, knew words like "metaphor" but couldn �t buy my own food, hardly knew how to find my way around and when I did the assessment to get into college for language classes, I was put in the group that was just above the level of the beginners.
One thing I positively remember about school is learning the irregular verbs by patterns rather than alphabetically sorted. That worked well for me. I still recommend that to my students.
At college I liked the conversation activities with the other foreign students best. (I was the only German in my class - lucky me... :-) ) We had to buy the "New Headway", but I didn �t like that much and we hardly used it. We used more worksheets. I started getting a hang of the tenses when our teacher explained them using timelines. I learned more there in 5 months (despite still speaking a lot of German with German friends there) than during the 6 years at school.
Enough - I could go on forever.
Fancy I am teaching English now!...
Greetings from sunny Germany! Looking forward to the other replies. :-)
Mietz
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23 Sep 2010
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serene
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Hi Marion,
I �ve never really reflected on the possible influence of my experience as a student learning English at school on my teaching today but now that I �m thinking of it I remember how bored I got with texts that were specifically written to present a particular grammar point (yes I �m that old too) as well as with exercises of the type "Rewrite the following sentences into the negative and interrogative form". This must explain the fact that I prefer teaching and practising grammar in context through the use of authentic texts and conversations rather than through lists of isolated sentences. And of course I like using songs, too!
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23 Sep 2010
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donapeter
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My first memories: 5th grade, just after the revolution! My first year of English was , in fact, the second year of English as I moved in another class who had studied English an year before. My first grade/mark: 3 ( verryyy bad) and the second one ......another 3!!! Then I started the fight!!!!! During the high school I had only one class of English/week as I studied Computer science and I was at a theoretical high-school: lots of Math, then Physics, Chemistry, almost 10 classes of computer science/Informatics. I wanted to become an English teacher and I passed the exams at the Language University! As Marion said, when I graduated the University I knew a lot of fancy words as linguistics, morphology,anaphora, synthetic derivation etc, I knew how to analyse a text from historical/literary point of view but the first question I was asked was: How do we say "cork" in English? (cork was said in Romanian) and I didn �t know the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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23 Sep 2010
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Ide_Bere
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I mostly remember a private class I had when I was at junior high school, the teacher asked to spell my name (Berenice) and I thought I`d done it right, but when I saw the report card he had written Verenice, I learnt the correct pronunciation of B and V.
All my high school, I was attending the bilingual program and we had several subjects in English, like World History, Art History, Physics, Math, Literature and English class. I started reading books in English and some of my favorites I read are "To Kill a Mocking Bird" and "The Lord of the flies" and I remember a literature class. We were discussing "Dr Jeckil and Mr Hide" and a friend of mine had understood something different than I son we started a debate and I remember it was all in English and for the first time I remember I was thinking everything in English, rather than translating from Spanish to English before talking. I wasn �t giving up!
At University I didn �t have any English class since the English program was really bad and I didn �t want to waste my time, instead I started a Teacher �s Course and I became an English teacher. When they asked me why I wanted to be a teacher I said "My mother made me come", now I love it!!
Bere
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23 Sep 2010
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yanogator
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I hope these will continue, because I am really enjoying reading about your experiences.
Bruce
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23 Sep 2010
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raquelgil
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I am
You are
he is...
All in this way and in the written form, obviously.
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23 Sep 2010
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savvinka
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I have been studying English from my green years, at a secondry school and then at a high school but when at the age of 27 I came to work to NY, I was really shocked beause I couldn �t hear people on phone, I didn �t understand TV and radio!!! It was awful! My boss asked me to make a reservation in a restaurant and I could hardly manage to do it , as I was afraid to speak, but it happened the restaurant was Italian and the guy on the other side couldn �t say a word in English either... In two months only I realized that I lived in a city where people spokethe same language with me I remember the first poem I learned by heart at school. I was 10, I think. I �m running on my skis White and nice are all the trees I �m as warm as warm can be Can you catch me? One, two, three... |
23 Sep 2010
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Lina Ladybird
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My first English teacher at the grammar school I attended was quite an old man with long hair, who seemed to be very eccentric to me, because he used to walk through our classroom like a model on a catwalk!! I was 10 years old at the time. When he came in, we all had to get up immediately, then he shouted "Good morning, boys and girls!" and we had to shout back "Good morning, Mr Matthes!" He taught us songs like "What shall we do with a drunken sailor?", and he was very strict. Some of my classmates were scared of him, but I wasn�t, because I was really eager to learn English, and I think I learnt a lot from him...
I can also remember most of my other English teachers, but I �m not able to say whether they were good or bad teachers - all this English teaching/studying happened such a long time ago!
The only thing I can surely remember is that I have always liked the English language - maybe because I �ve never had any with problems learning it! I �ve always had pretty good marks.
In January 1999 I started an extended vocational training with English being the core theme. I loved it, because my teacher was a native speaker from England, who had been living in Germany for a long time. I think he was - and probably still is - an excellet teacher: very calm, extremely patient and always willing to explain everything again and again.
The fact that I lived in Scotland and Wales for about 15 months has also helped me improve my command of the English language a lot. Moreover, I used to have a Scottish boyfriend from 1989 to 1994, which was also a big advantage in terms of enhancing different language skills, of course...
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24 Sep 2010
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zailda
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My first memory: 5th grade, the teacher (who lived for 9 years in England) said her name, turned to the board and wrote the verb to be, then asked us to copy. And this was the grammar we saw during that year.
6th grade, the teacher (who started teaching that year) said her name, turned to the board and wrote down the verb to be, then asked us to copy.
7th grade, the same...
8th grade, the same...
When I was 15 I started a course in a language school and it was when (coincidence???) I started learning. And I found out what is the verb to be... and other things, of course. |
24 Sep 2010
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lizamuni
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Hi people from ESL. I had a great time reading your memories, here go mine.
First year, secondary school, a very strict and serious teacher trying to make us copy the rythm and pronunciation of the sentence: "This is a cat."
Very funny now when I remember my classmates faces!!!
the course book "English Alive" (as you can see I�m that old too or older than many of you) and any opportunitiy to practise "real English"
The same for next four school years and after five years with just 1 hour and half English a week, I finished secondary school and could write (and say) .... the time!!!!!!!
Than I went to university to study Communication and I started learning English at a language school. A bit of "real English" at last!! |
24 Sep 2010
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