The English Teacher Explains His Approach to the Task of Training Each Student.

Ambrose Powell, native born English speaker and language teacher for more than forty years, first became interested in other languages while studying French in elementary school and junior high school, and added Latin while attending high school. In his undergraduate studies he worked with Biblical Greek and an introduction to Biblical Hebrew. During his twenty-two years of graduate studies, he continued to study Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew, and a little modern Hebrew. Apart from these university studies he also learned Spanish and added a little bit more of modern Hebrew. He has made translations into English and Spanish and has worked with both languages even for the purpose of translating legal documents. In order to keep himself up to date in English, while living in Venezuela, he has read and reviewed some books before and after their publication over Amazon, paying special attention to the plots and general development of the main ideas. 

 This experience studying languages has helped him to understand what are the main elements to which we should pay attention in order to improve the way that we express our modern language ideas, whether that be in English or in Spanish. Ideally, we should learn from a modern language teacher who is a native speaker, who keeps using his or her native language, and who knows how to teach it. It is not an easy task to teach a language when students are very different agewise, at this moment ranging from nine years old to around fifty years old, and have different purposes or reasons for wanting to study English, from wanting to satisfy the homework requirements of the school, to preparing to take the TOEFL exam, or understanding and pronouncing the language well as a professional. It is not easy, but it is possible.

According to Powell's Perspective (or Ambrose's Approach, if you are more informal), at least in order to learn modern English or modern Spanish, one will be working constantly to acquire a good vocabulary, good pronunciation, good structural understanding, and good creative initiative. It is better to start off on the basic level of the language by learning the basic knowledge and skills related to the alphabet, the pronunciation of the vowels, and the way in which words are divided into syllables. At the same time it is relevant to acquire a good understanding and use of the eight or nine parts of speech, the four basic phrases, the two major divisions of a simple sentence to express an idea, and three ways to classify a sentence. On an intermediate level it is important to deepen and widen the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills of both the simple and the advanced sentences and the four characteristics or essential qualities of an effective sentence. On an advanced level, in order to be able to work with paragraphs, in addition to the practical ability to produce the four essential qualities of an effective sentence, especially an advanced sentence, it is absolutely necessary to apply these same qualities to a paragraph and add the theoretical and practical knowledge of how to produce good topic sentences and good simple paragraph outlines. It is also important to review, deepen, and widen the ability to use other basic and advanced level themes and acquire, know and use more vocabulary words and more idiomatic expressions. With this approach or perspective, a student will acquire a practical and integrated knowledge of the language being studied.

Published by Ambrose Powell

Ambrose Powell, professor, counselor and lifelong fan of professional sports teams from the Boston area (Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots) was born and raised in the well-known New England region of the United States. He currently teaches English in Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela but also maintains his interest in his New England professional sports teams and follows them closely from his present location.