more teacher fun

While the average age of those attending is between 20 and 40, either students that have to pass the English exam at university, or company employees that require a minimum of proficiency to deal with their international colleagues, there are a few over-the-hill people... and some children.

I had 5 hours of teaching ahead of me today. The first one up was a teenage girl. I had already had an experience with not one, but two girls, and it had been a small nightmare that had lasted an hour. One kept doodling and interrupting, and decided she had to tell us the latest jokes she had learned. I had made the mistake of interrupting their Italian conversations, showing I understood, so she quickly stopped trying to say things in English. The other, only a year older and only slightly more serious, was easily dragged by the younger tsunami.

Today it was a different teenager, a little older, and alone, which was a plus. But she was the typical apathetic youngster, and I don't know how she had gotten all the way to level 20. She ended up not even doing her regular lesson, and I just tried to coach her through some basic grammar.

By the end of the 30 minutes I smiled and got ready for my next student. When I first get to the office, I just find a list of times and last names, preceded by either Mr or Ms. I'm also given cards that track each student's progress, to know what level they are at and what the lesson I'm supposed to cover. Today I hadn't had time to look at them closely. When I called out the name of my next student, "Mr. Rossi", looking towards the only middle-aged man in the room, I heard a small "here" from behind me. I turned around. He couldn't have been much older than 12. Drats.

He was just as happy as I was to go over his lesson, but at least he was smart and we got over it quickly enough, with even a few laughters while correcting some pronunciation mistakes. I have figured out a few tricks to teach key sounds, like comparing the voices of some British-Italian comedians to a phonetic symbol, or drawing a sheep over another symbol so they would remember that the "a" in "cat" is an "open" sound, like the bleating of a sheep...

Two out of two. That was my children quota of the day! I had a few random people after that, easy lessons, nothing much out of the ordinary. Some discussions over newspaper articles with women my own age, with whom I had many memories in common, of shows or music we used to listen to when we were children...

And then I saw her. The nightmare doodle/joke girl. Alone, even though it was the same one-hour schedule as last time. I swore silently, joked with the receptionist about it, and then called her in. If she was alone, I could handle her better. But a whole hour... ugh.

Unfortunately the other girl showed up, only 10 minutes late. I managed to keep a serious lesson going while we went over the tests, and the beginning of the oral exercises. I think it was a record 40 minutes. Then doodle girl just started telling jokes again. Last time I had managed to exchange some funny doodles. This time I wanted to play more serious... but I still let her tell me a joke. And I couldn't help it. I truly laughed at one of them. I can only say that at least I tried to have them tell the jokes in English. So, today, *I* learned some new one-liners.

"What animal is blue with 2 red stripes down his chest?"
A chicken whose suspenders are too tight.

wah wah wah waaaaaah

And this other one merits a mention:"What animal is yellow, fast, and very dangerous?"
A chicken running around with a gun.

The universe rewarded my patience with 2 no-shows right after that, giving me a whole hour of respite. And the last student was a very nervous geek who shouted and twitched throughout his whole lesson. At the end, when he went to the receptionist to schedule his next lesson, he wasn't shouting anymore. I had to chuckle at that.