“...And Those Who Can’t, Teach.”

For those of you who don’t know, this week was my introduction to teaching English as a foreign language. I signed up with the director of my study abroad office to volunteer once a week each at both this elementary school on the outskirts of town and at the Alicante School of Languages, which is about a ten minute walk from my house. 

How did it go? Well. As the the Spaniards say: “¡Madre mía!” which translates in this case as “Christ, I had no idea nine year-olds were so freaking annoying.” I had no idea what to expect when I walked into the classroom, but when I stepped across the threshold I suddenly realized something that should have been very obvious: I had to actually teach  the little monsters, and all I was equipped with was a map of the United States. The kids’ usual teacher had no sympathy. Her battle-hardened eyes grazed over the panicked look in my eyes and she said, “Twelve at a time should be okay, shouldn’t it?” I nodded stupidly and took a dozen of the screaming children to the library with me. I seated them around a table and passed out the maps of the US I had and they immediately launched into a million questions, probing my defenses like I was just some substitute teacher and not an honorary native of the English language come to give them the gift of my inspiring presence. They asked everything in Spanish despite this being their slotted time to practice English:

“Do you like Spain?”

“George, shut up, she probably doesn’t even know Spanish.”

[Giggles]

“How many siblings do you have?”

“How old are you? I bet you’re at least 36.”

[Giggles]

“What is this a map of? Where’s Spain?”

“I can see Texas!”

“Sandy’s from Texas.”

“George, shut up! She doesn’t know what Spongebob is.”

[Giggles]

I seized the brief pause in questioning and cleared my throat authoritatively. “Actually, I love Spongebob! He’s square, has holes all over his body, and he’s--”

“YELLOW!” screamed one small girl in English.

I could have kissed her. “Yes, yellow! Very good. What about Patrick, what color is he?”

And so it went for the next half-hour, the map laying forgotten on the table as we spoke of American cartoons and I astounded them with crazy facts like, “Yes, children--in the United States, Spongebob is on the TV in English!”

The next group was a little more...difficult. I think that their normal teacher saw how much the first group of children learned to appreciate my extensive knowledge of Spongebob and laced the next group’s juice with speed, just to spite me--we are in Europe after all, maybe that sort of thing is accepted here. Anyway, the point is, the next group of children walked in and I could immediately tell that...well. Every class of students at every age is split into the “good, smart, gifted children” and the “accidents of birth who probably get too much sun.” I was now gifted with a half-hour session of trying to teach English to the second half of the class, and they were not so easily won-over by my Spongebob name-dropping. We pulled out flashcards of the vocabulary they were learning, and I’d ask them, “Can you...?” and they’d scream out the activity presented on the card, i.e. “SWEEM! I cahn sweem!” 

It was a good exercise for most of the class. If it weren’t for the special students, the ones who would be stuffed with meds for ADHD in the United States once they learned how to walk--if it weren’t for them, we might have gotten through the activity. This one boy, though, was determined to undermine my authority. He had a little Euro Trash rattail and a devilish look in his eye that I suspect got him everything he wanted at home and made all of his teachers miserable. Every time I’d hold out a flashcard, he would ignore the neat little drawing of the man playing tennis and scream, “I can chorizo,” causing the rest of the class to erupt in cacophonous laughter. It quickly got out of control. I tried reminding them that we were in the library and had to be quiet, but they ignored me so I took a book from the shelf behind me and slammed it down on the table, which produced a stunned silence that lasted for a blissful 3/4 of a second before returning to chaos. 

I tried to remember what my teachers had done to maintain order, all of the things I’d heard about dealing with little snots, and then I had a brilliant idea. I leaned over the table and started whispering: “Now, children, here’s what we’re going to do...”

Interested by my change in tone, they all leaned in and stopped talking so they could hear what I was saying. It worked!...at least until they decided that what I was saying wasn’t interesting and ignored me again. If you’ve got any ideas, please leave them for me in the comments.

Anyway, so on Thursday I went to the Alicante School of Languages, and that was much more successful. It took me FOREVER to find the right classroom, but when I did the class was really excited to have me there. There was a teacher there to kind of help me along and guide me to ask the right questions, it was really nice. Most of them were in the 30-50 age demographic; when one of them asked how old I was and I told them I was 19, they all kind of gasped and twittered amongst themselves until someone bravely ventured, “Well, you seem very mature for your age.” It was a successful class, though; for two hours we just talked about traveling and the difference between American English and British English and the drinking age in the United States.  

My favorite moment was at the end of the class, though. The teacher came up to me and told me that at the end of every class, the students listened to an English song and tried to fill in the lyrics in an accompanying worksheet as they played through it several times. I wasn’t really sure what song I was expecting to follow the quaint British woman’s voice on the CD (“Lesson fifteen point five--Popular Songs in the English Language”) but it sure as hell wasn’t Freddie Mercury. I swear to god I almost died from trying to hold in my laughter--by the fifth refrain of “We Are the Champions,” I was laughing out-loud and singing along dramatically, much to the delight of the class.

Shortly after, I walked back to my house in the chilled Mediterranean air with a smile on my face, thinking that maybe that old saying about those who can’t do things teach them was a bunch of shit, because I’d just had the most fun I’d had all week struggling to remember how to spell the word “affordable” and talking about American culture with a bunch of older people that probably wouldn’t have given me the time of day before. It was all I could do not to skip home.

“And it goes on and on and on and on! We are the Champions, my friends...”