The Americanoid Blog

Being self-employed I always try not to work Friday afternoons, my last class of the day is scheduled to end at 2pm. I have the rest of the afternoon free and many times I just go home and do whatever I feel like doing or not doing. It’s so liberating this feeling of not having to worry. Of course, my 12.30 pm student quite often cancels her class in the last minute. Can’t blame her. Poor thing. Way too busy juggling 231 hats. So many times while driving to class or waiting for her in reception, I am informed to do an about-face and get out of the way.

Usually my 8.30am Student is late, sometimes VERY late, so I always take books, ipad, newspaper, podcasts, and whatever I can think of to class to keep myself busy. Let’s call her Student A: she is a very pleasant person, however, talks WAY too much about anything, everything, except what she should be talking about in class. It’s complicated to have an introduction, development and conclusion of class when your student is shooting rubber question marks at 360 degrees. Because her tongue is advanced but her vocabulary is intermediate, every sentence in her speech is full of question marks in her intonation checking for confirmation of the word she’s using. For example, when describing a situation she begins saying: “she went under? Oh yes, downstairs. To the garage? oh yes, to the parking lot. She saw a police? Oh yes, a policeman, and she questioned? Oh yes, she asked her? Policeman? him?… and there she goes for a whole hour. ” 

Coincidentally today two of my classes worked with humor. One lesson was part of the last chapter of the textbook dealing with humor as a science and why we laugh. The other class it was the student with a real upbeat spirit making the class light and the activities move smoothly. Learning to laugh at themselves is a task that both teacher and students must learn.
This afternoon the student walks into the room and says “I took some alcohol before the class”. I thought ok, now I have an alcoholic student. She meant to say she was regularly using the hand sanitizer gel. Go figure. 😜
Another funny situation when she said vacuum and she meant vaccine. She was confusing the English word with the Spanish “vacuna”. She also said CIDA instead of AIDS. The funny confusions of learning a 3rd language.
Sometimes we come across a student who no matter how hard she tries she seems not to make any progress. She does almost all her assigned homework, has reached an upper intermediate level after years and years of classes but still fumbles the ball when having to produce the simplest sentences. As her teacher I can choose between snapping at her saying: how can you be so thick/ dimwit or any other less than flattering adjective. Or I can laugh it off and start again. I choose the latter. Mo