You say Potato, I say………… it differently

So we’ve all had a giggle now and again when a student has mis-pronounced or slipped up.  Now of course, we’re not taking the mickey, well we are, but come on I’ve had enough people laugh at my attempts to poliglot.  So here are a few that I heard.  No offence intended, but may be caused………….

1. The girl with no scruples:

So let’s play a game, I said. The students must think of 4 true sentences about themselves and 4 false ones. The group then ask questions to decipher which ones are dross and which aren’t.  Girl steps up to the plate: “I’ve had two boys at the same time”  “Er, sorry, could you say that again please?”.  “I’ve had two boys at the same time”.  I think (and hope) she meant two boyfriends at the same time. I have a feeling the boy students were hoping that it was actually one of her true sentences.  

2. Is the native a fast learner?:

Students are interested in how we picked up all the vocab, grammar, phrasal verbs, idioms, etc and how we seemingly know everything that is put before us.  But where did this knowledge come from?  My personal favourite was when a student, with a perfectly straight face asked me: “when you learnt English, how long did it take for you to finish the course?” “Sorry, what?” The question was repeated.  I was a little speechless and the girl had eyes like Bambi, so I did the right thing……….. “err about 5 years” I answered, and swiftly moved on.

3. The Real Thing (or Phallicy):

Of course there are the cheap examples where the accent causes a little snigger. For example, the student who visited England and spent most of his evenings in the pub sipping back a cool glass of everyone’s favourite black fizzy liquid.  However he had to practice his pub etiquette as initially he was asking the barman for a “bottle of cock”.

4. Take your weight off your feet:

Students love holiday chat.  It’s a crowd pleaser.  Everyone can join in and the vocab is easy.  Or is it.  One group full of guys liked nothing more than sinking a few beers in the sun while lying on a “bitch”.

5. The word that shall never be mentioned:

This one was tricky to explain to the students.  It even got to the point where I was starting to teach the word “cannot” rather than “can’t” to avoid any pronunciation similarity to that taboo word.

I’m sure many of you have seen “The Italian man who went to Malta”.  If not, it’s a video on You Tube where the accent is creating confusion, with hilarious consequences (or not depending on opinion).  It’s cheap and I feel a little grubby laughing about it, but then if you can’t (sorry, cannot) laugh at other people, when can you?

What the Plunking Bollards is a Paradigm?

First lesson is up.

Right, so I just go in there and talk right?  Cool, I can do that.  I mean how hard can it be?  These guys speak English, they want to learn and surely they like the idea of tripping the light fantastic linguistic styleeee, right?

Well kind of.  But I sense the fear.  In their eyes and in my trousers.  The boss of the school natually smelt my fear from a hundred paces and so was kind enough to make things even worse by sitting in.  Aha, so not only do I not have an utter Scooby of what I’m supposed to be doing but an actual teacher, with actual experience is watching my every uncomfortable move.

We start. It’s not so bad actually. They seem to understand me and I am trying hard to understand them.  Moving nicely through the material until the worst possible scenario happens. I see a word (an English word) that I have never ever ever seen before.  The question in the book asks……..”What is the paradigm of Fall?”  Now out of the six words in that question I sense that the most important of them is the word “Paradigm”.  I don’t even know how to even pronounce the stupid thing.  I glance at my boss who is sitting with a rather knowing, worried face.  “So!”  I ask the strongest student……..”What is the paradigm of Fall?”  I then realise that his answer is kinda irrelevant as I don’t know the answer either.  Of course, I do the brave and decent thing………I go round the group asking the other students if he’s right.  They all seem to agree. “Well done!”  I spout unconvincingly.  A side glance to the boss suggests I clearly haven’t got away with it.

We continue, crossing perilous bridges signposted “Past Simple” and “Present Perfect”. There’s even one called “Present Perfect Continuous”!  What are these?  We go on to “action”, “time”, “in progress”…….. errrr, eh? There’s more confusion: “What do you mean time hasn’t finished?”  “What do you mean the action continues up to the present time?”  “What is a gerund?”  WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS SO COMPLICATED FOR ME !  

Calm down, deep breaths. Is it me or is my face on fire?   The rather humbling feeling I get from all this is that I’m certainly no John Keating. There will be no Dead TEFL Teacher Society.  There will be no students clambering up on to the desk, holding their hands to their hearts pledging “O captain, my captain”.  Well, what did I expect.

So the lesson from the lesson?  Blag it baby……………………they’ll never know the difference………….and even if they do, it will give them confidence knowing that you can’t get to grips with the language either.

Me Speaky No Ingleesh

What language barrier?

We’re all part of Europe, aren’t we? It’s all one big country but just with a few different states, isn’t it?  Isn’t it just like America but without the celebrity sex tapes?

Having settled down on my new foreign terrain, it was time to attack the language problem.  The first thing I noticed, walking around, eyes wide open, was the plethora of language schools.  That’s a positive sign. First, plenty of work, therefore, plenty of dirty lucre. Second, some of these guys must speak English.  I mean, how much are they spending on private language education?  They must be Keats, Byron and Wordsworth all rolled into one big English speaking crepe……………

The answer is a resounding Non, Nein, Nie, etc……

I’m thinking I’ve gone back in time.  The few friendlier looking folks that I approached for a bit of help, directions, medical advice, etc maybe had heard of a language called English, but that’s as far as their knowledge went.  Not to worry, let’s ask some of the angst ridden teens who deal with English on a daily basis at school.

“Excuse me……..” ….giggle…. “Err sorry but do you speak English? …..giggle giggle…..” Err, do you know any English at all?  “Ingleeeeeesh?…..giggle….hontfed ur sishs w sis kishsi ndneo”  “Aha, thanks”

It kickstarts the grey cells into gear.  Are they taught anything in their English lessons?  Is it a contact thing?  Is it that they don’t have many foreigners?  Is it laziness?  Is it just not important to them?  Am I talking outloud?  Doesn’t matter, they won’t understand me anyway.

To be fair, my first experiences were partly my fault.  I had bothered to learn the impressive amount of sod-all of their language before I came in strutting like a peacock.  So, I had to learn to deal with the language barrier in a bit of a softer way.  I’m in their country, not mine.  I don’t speak any of their language, so why I am taking the moral high one.  Once they realise you aren’t taking the mickey, they genuinely try to speak.  Maybe it’s a confidence thing, maybe it’s just too difficult but either way at least they’re trying.

I found myself in the vortex of trying to remember my language education at school and, basically, just how rubbish I was at it.  These guys actually need this language, maybe they don’t want to learn it necessarily but they are in a position of being forced to, to an extent.  That can’t be a nice feeling.  No-one forced me to knuckle down and learn a language because it would improve my job prospects.  I’m wondering how much they resent the fact that they have to do it and how much they resent me for not having to learn their language.  But then, having to teach it to them is no day at the beach either.  Perhaps I should be forced to learn their language instead of having to teach mine.  Yes, that’s the solution. Yeah – damn cowardly foreigners.  You try moving to some backward town in Wales and start teaching them Ukranian!  Go on, try and teach me a language, any language at all……….. I dare you.

Pastures New

Moving Abroad

Time to up and leave.  The job is organised and I’m off to pastures new.  What the hell am I thinking – I’m leaving my family, friends, everything I’ve ever known.  My travelling experience had previously been restricted to lying on a beach in a grubby, cheap Spanish holiday resort with nothing but a bottle of Amstel to keep me company.  So what do I expect from this adventure?

The first thing was the feeling of having no responsibility.  Leaving my native land behind with all the certainty, safety, the dull city centres and an overdose of capitalism had its pluses.  I had nobody to tell me what to do, no brain achingly boring reports to be on anybody’s desk at 9am and absolutely no sleazy arse-weasel boss to tell me I had to work late.

So what if I don’t like it.  I’ll just jump back home.  I boarded the plane, waved goodbye to the teary eyed folks and set off to a country about which I knew nothing.  I was met at the airport by the rep of the school.  Actually, he was pretty helpful but the place was covered in snow.  Hmmm should have done my homework on the climate.  What I hadn’t realised is that the organisation of accommodation is ad hoc to put it politely (i.e. none).  So I awoke the next day in my hotel/student dorm/hole still not really knowing where I was going.   A short drive and we were in my city.  No accommodation still.  After visiting some flats which even made me blush, I settled on a reasonable place (with the “rep” still with me).  “Hot water will be turned on soon”  Soon?  That means what exactly? Errr 2/3 days?  Hmmmm again.  Anyway, it was warm and I wasn’t sleeping in the snow so I had to take the positives.

The first night was a startling realisation that I had absolutely nothing to eat or drink, didn’t speak a word of the local language and had the prospect of my first lesson the next day.  Was I in the mood to be laughed at by a bunch of foreign teens?  Not really.  Was I looking and feeling professional?  Nuh uh.  But was it the best decision of my life?  I looked around the stark, stained, bare walls and sent a few texts home.  Best decision?  We’ll see but at least I don’t have to write that report for the arse-weasel……………

Taking the TEFL Plunge

Taking the TEFL Plunge

Utterly, Utterly bored bone dry at work.  So what can I do for a little bit of excitement?  Move country?  OK.  So how do I do that exactly?  Get a job.  OK.  Doing what you do now? Hmm No, thanks.

I had a friend who had tried TEFL in the Czech Republic but actually didn’t like it that much.  Despite the poor critique I decided that for a change (maybe short term, maybe not) I’d do a quick and dirty course in TEFL teaching.  How hard can it be to just speak in my own language all day?  I’ve managed it pretty well so far.

Signed up for a weekend course.  Nervous?  Not really, but still wasn’t sure if I’d made the right decision.  Turned out I had.  Maybe this was going to be my thing.  The training was fun, but not without a few shocks.  I never realised how complicated our language was and just how much effort it takes for a foreigner to learn it.  “Grade your language please” the teacher told me.  5 minutes later “Ahem, Grade your language”  Why?  Ahhhhh yes, because 8 year old Greek kids won’t understand anything that’s not an animal, fruit or colour.  Got it.

8 year old kids?  Kids you say?  My heart dropped like a hungover vindaloo.  You mean the small ones?   Can’t I just teach the big ones? The ones who are already good?  Nope. 

Imposter Syndrome? – Check.  I’m not a teacher I kept telling myself.  I can speak English, but teach it?  Hmmm. No.  But after a bit of practice and realising that everyone was just as useless as I was, I relaxed and really enjoyed it.  Great career choice.

The road had begun. Easy? Not really.  Untrod? Oh Yeah, but it was definitely going to be different.  English is widely spoken (badly) and trying to hone a piece of grammar on a bunch on foreign teens was not on my “to do” list last year.  Anyway, the first experience of teaching was positive.  Looks fun, but boy the language isn’t simple.  No wonder Dubya had  difficulties……………………