Best teacher paradox

I started to use Italki 4 years ago when I needed to prepare myself for a job interview in Spanish. This is how I met Auri, a brilliant teacher that became my friend and who came to visit me in Moscow. It has already been already for 3 years that I don’t take since I stop taking her lessons but we still keep in touch and a couple of months ago she came to my place in Rome and I showed her my new life.

Last years I had a lot of teachers that were very nice and interesting people, we shared and discussed some life situations and many other topics and I got to know plenty of stuff about their jobs, travelling and their point of view. But sometimes I felt like I was wasting my time a little bit, because to be honest, I didn’t really need to practice listening and was rather to speak more expecting more corrections and advices about better rephrasing when I spoke. My teachers used to tell a lot of funny stories, and I enjoyed listening to them but as I said, listening wasn’t on the my top of my needs priority, especially taking into consideration that there are plenty of other ways to practice this concrete skill - Ted talks, Coursera lectures, series. Another habit that annoyed me in about some of my teacher was their long grammatical explanations. If I make a mistake, I expect my teacher would finger identify it and tell me the name of the rule I need to repeat or even send me a link where I can read about it. Instead some of them could spend spent 10-15 minutes explaining to me the grammar without paying attention to the fact that I said “I understand” several times.

So, what I was talking about… Oh, yeah, Chris. I find my perfect teacher. He lets me speak a lot and makes notes about my mistakes, revealing them in the end of session. He makes short remarks to maintain the conversation but he never stopped me saying “something similar happened to me, listen...” (usually a long story follows this introduction). I talk 95% of the session and I happy about it. But at the same time I feel kind of bad because I don’t ask him anything and, honestly, don’t know the first thing about him. It is a pity because I like him a lot, I can see he is very prudent and kind. Today I felt ashamed as I understood realised that I even hadn’t asked him how his day was. Of course, I want to practice more, but the fact that I talk most of the time, makes me feel selfishan egoist.

It seems like you always have to choose between being friends or remaining a student and a teacher.

There are no 'rules', the press just don't want to appear discriminatory. 

 

Unfortunately, because certain groups/organisations, particularly the public sector are so sensitive about the issue, some photos etc have almost become ridiculous as it so obvious what they are trying to do. For example, when I was studying to be a school teacher all the photos seems to have four children in it: two boys, two girls, two white skinned (one blond, one with dark hair), and a child with east asian features and a child with dark/black skin. 

I say it is ridiculous because it is ironic that by trying to tackle discriminatory behaviour they sometimes deliberately discriminating on who they select to be included in such photos. Without a history of discrimination and a fear of appearing discriminatory, the four children in a picture would just be any random selection of boys and girls and different races and nobody would think anything of it. 

Learning English

How to do I learn English easily here?
I am new in these into italki, can someone can tell me how (best) to learn please?

In answer to your question, there are various ways you can learn English:

- Pay for on-line classes (e.g. through Skype)

- Arrange a language exchange with another use, whereby you teach your native language (e.g. Spanish) in exchange for help with English

- You write notebook entries (like this one) and someone will correct you.