What I know after decades of teaching

29 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, an experienced language teacher reflects on two decades of classroom practice, emphasizing that no matter how sophisticated a teaching strategy or how strong a learner’s grammar knowledge may be, speaking proficiency cannot improve without repeated, active practice. The speaker argues that speaking up must be treated as a skill that requires continual repetition, trial‑and‑error, and adjustment. Improvement comes from repeatedly sharing opinions, getting to the point, selecting appropriate words, recovering from mistakes, and restarting when stuck, rather than from intellectual understanding alone.

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But if there is one thing I know after almost 2 decades of teaching, it's this. It doesn't matter how good the strategy is. I have some good strategies, I promise you, but it doesn't matter how good it is or how much English you know or how great your grammar is. If you don't actually do the thing you want to improve again and again, which is speaking up, you're not going to improve it. So speaking up is not just a skill that you can understand intellectually and then magically do it. You need repetitions. You need experience, you need to try and fail and adjust and try again, whether it's sharing an opinion, getting to the point, using better grammar, choosing the right words, recovering when you get stuck, starting over.