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Watch Your Language

caldrail

Entry posted by caldrail

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There's a tree in Savernake Forest that I know of. An unremarkable tree at first glance until you discover how old it is. That old fella was sprouting out of ground, fresh from the seed, roughly the same time William the Conqueror was striding ashore at Hastings.

 

That day in 1066 changed everything. From that point forwards, England and France would be uncomfortable neighbours, no doubt made worse by the Germanic roots of the Anglo-Saxons. Of course now we're on good terms, despite my successful attempts to enrage my French teacher as a child. Nobody else liked her either.

 

It's an instinctive thing, this antipathy between the British and French. Even some of our insults derive from our little upsets. The English two-fingered salute originated from medieval archers who taunted the French by showing they still had their bow fingers - the French had taken to cutting them off every time they caught one of them.

 

We don't fight wars with the French any more, and to be honest, I'm a bit old to annoy French teachers now. Instead, we have a rivalry over language. A couple of decades ago the French created legislation to stop their countrymen using anglicised words in everyday conversation. They felt it was poisoning their traditional language. Imagine then my suprise when I see on the news that the French government are encouraging the education of English in their country. How times have changed. I watched as their schoolchildren underwent physical education classes entirely in English. They have free lessons and language camps out of term time, just to learn how to speak our tongue.

 

The pervasiveness of the English language is something we take for granted. Usually when an Englishman encounters foreigners who don't understand him he simply shouts louder. Despite this traditional English ignorance of foreign languages, I did learn some French at school, inbetween annoying teachers. On an industrial visit to France back in my college days I had many opportunities to display this mastery of conversational French. I don't know if the bus driver actually understood me or not, but he took my money anyway and I arrived back at the hostel safe and well. As for the toilet cleaner we asked directions of, I can assure him we did find the Harbourmaster later that day. As for that idiot I tried to buy chocolate from - I wanted two bars of the stuff, not to haggle over the price. So I got to shout louder at a foreigner after all.

 

Phone Call of the Week

Talking about communication, I got a wierd phone call the other day. I found it on my answering service, three minutes of wheezing and a distant voice asking "Are you done yet?".

 

My phone tells me there was no phone number, so I'm inclined to believe I have been contacted by aliens from the Planet Zarg who want to abduct me for sex. Thanks for the call guys, but lets stick to taking you to our leader, yes? Oh.... They've hung up......

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docoflove1974

From the other side of the teacher's desk...

 

I love it when my students try to talk to the various native Spanish speakers in the area...they're proud of the work they've done in class, and they want to show off. The difference, of course, that most Hispanic cultures are welcoming when someone tries to speak their language. They slow down their speech for the gringo, clean up the enunciation, and try to do the best they can. My students come back with the stories. "You won't believe it! We went to the Mexican place down the street and I ordered for everyone in Spanish! The waiter was so cool...he helped me a couple of times with pronunciation, but it went so well! I did it!"

 

Although...and I'll never know the truth...I secretly wonder if the patience and smiles are genuine. I suspect it is, but having experience with other not-so-enthusiastic peoples, well, one never knows.

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caldrail

I suspect your students are more motivated than I was. Back then, I disliked the teacher, and with boyish insidiousness, proceeded to reduce her to a nervous wreck. She did try to motivate us though. There was this idea she had for team based learning with a mural painted around the walls to show the position of the teams as they progress toward France.

 

She made the mistake of putting me on the team painting the mural... And I hit on the idea of a horizontal 'snakes and ladders'. She wasn't overly impressed with the artwork to begin with, and even less when she saw the crude police van directing those with poor pronounciation to jail and so back the start.

 

I understand that the year after I left her tuition she turned into a fire breathing dragon and reduced her pupils to nervous wrecks instead... Maybe I shouldn't admit to being the cause of such suffering and misery...

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docoflove1974

Eh, it depends. My guess is that you weren't the first or last to pull those stunts on her, and she just wised up. Or something to that effect.

 

The joys of teaching in the collegiate system is that I don't have to worry about that. The first day of class I admit that I'm a smartass, and like to inject humor into the lessons when possible, including making ridiculous sentences. But there's a line, and I have zero fear of telling them when they've crossed it. Thankfully it doesn't happen often...one of my best friends says it's my penchant for wearing red and 3" heels on the first day of class...I say it's the evil eye I throw around when needed.

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