Let´s speak in English

As language learners, we all know the experience of feeling like a child again, of not having the words to express ourselves. We often believe that the other person is judging us, that our mistakes and difficulties make us look stupid. You always think: “Don’t open your mouth, you’ll sound stupid,” and the sad part is that most of us tend to listen. Even worse, we project this voice upon other people, assuming that they are criticizing us.

The most relevant fear students have when they decide to learn English is to speak. In Liceo Cervantes el Retiro teachers plan and work with different activities to teach our students that they’re not alone, that is what it feels like to learn another language, and we need our students try many times.

Besides the studying of the grammatical skill, vocabulary and listening activities, our Cervantinians need to improve how they organize their ideas and can express them.

Most of these ideas are using the dialogues from books and webpages, but we use some special items that show our students the necessary in their lives, what they are going to use in their real lives, living and working abroad when they graduated. In our classes, students prepare the dialogues according to these topics that we propose them:

Explaining a Haircut

Looking for a job

Asking for a dinner

Buying a vacation plan

Talking to the doctor

These examples help us out as teachers and we have had successful experiences with our students that have had speaking English without fear.

Emerson Villa Andrade

English teacher

Eighth Grade