Diary of a (Student) Teacher
By Giulia Raus
In the previous issues we spoke a lot about students – British, Italian and French students and their struggle in learning languages. This time I would love to focus on a different scenario: the teacher.
We normally don’t think about it when we speak our own language, but all of us have a “starter”; some words or sentences that we use to catch other people’s attention, something that we say so often that it comes out automatically and we don’t even realise it. In Italian for instance I usually say: “Allora” which we can translate in English with “So” or in French with “Alors/donc”.
You are probably asking yourself “and then? What’s the point of this?” the point is, when you are a teacher in a foreign country and you are teaching your third language and the class you are teaching is composed of 35 teenagers that are not planning to stop talking just because you are standing there with a badge around your neck, the confusion inside and outside of your brain kind of get to you and mixes up all the languages you know into just one embarrassing, meaningless group of letters that most of the time sounds like: “Allssoooonc!”.
At that point you have caught their attention, not because they want to listen to you, but because they are surprised and confused about what is going on with the teacher – is she having a stroke? – (to be honest I think the same, am I alright? Should I get checked?).
I am not going to lie, sometimes it is embarrassing and I don’t particularly like the sensation of impotence when the words don’t come out how they are supposed to, it feels like the ground is missing beneath your feet and you are falling into a deep hole of embarrassment. Many times, I doubted myself asking if I was the right person to teach languages if in moments of need, I get confused.
Well, let me tell you something at the end of the day your students will recognise the effort. They seem as though they are not observing you, they seem like they are playing the “dumb card” but they don’t, don’t get me wrong, they will make fun of you, of your accent, of your weird sentences that make sense in (maybe) another language, but they will also ask you astonished – miss how do you do it? – or say – wow I will never be that fluent in French like you are in English – in those cases it’s your turn to reassure them that they are going to be able to speak a foreign language and that you are going to help them.
But see, after those ten seconds of kindness they will go back talking to their partners completely ignoring you and then here you go again trying to catch their attention, especially the attention of the one who is dangerously swinging on the chair but eerrrm what was the word for “swinging”? How do you say that? And then you try to rapidly read the dictionary in your brain looking for a synonym and the only solution is shouting either “you stoooop!” or “sit properly”, or more rapid but ineffective “non ti dondolare” in Italian.
And I have plenty of examples, the funniest is a student asking me, “miss how do I say – I wear a yellow skirt?” and because I was busy stopping a kid throwing a pen I dismissively replied, “I wear une jupe jaune”. At that point the poor kid, with very confused ideas, stayed still, staring at me hoping I could realise on my own what I said or if it was his hard job telling me that I was mixing up two languages. At the end of the story, the typical kid that notices and points out everything happened to listen and instantly laughed shouting “miss are you drunk?”. Unfortunately, it happens, and when you are tired, confused by the noises and many people talking at you it doesn’t help you at all.
In conclusion I noticed how every language is composed of “comfortable” words. Those that people use to catch attention, to start a sentence or to finish one and there is one for every context and situation. Unfortunately, it is rare that you are going to learn these little words in school or university. This is the occasion where my grandma’s words actually make sense, “you can only learn a language if you go to the country where they speak it, that is the only way to learn” (that is what she said to the poor granddaughter that was studying languages at university). However, in this case it makes sense like in this particular situation where you have to hold your emotions and make space for reason and knowledge to prevail over those little adorable monsters that we call students.
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I love this story. I have had a similar experience. I am a family doctor. My first language is English – but I also speak Spanish and Russian well. I take care of patients using all three of these languages. Frequently, I go from one room speaking Spanish to the next room speaking Russian and vice versa. I learned Russian in high school and college – with 8 years of formal study. My Spanish came later in my 30’s, mostly self-taught. I can go from Spanish to Russian with few mistakes – just the odd small word like “yes” or “I” gets mixed up. Interestingly, however, I find it extremely challenging to make the switch back to Spanish if I have been speaking Russian with no English in between as a buffer. This creates many comical situations with garbled words and sentences that belong to neither language – and I am sure, like you, that my patients must think I need to see a doctor myself! It is literally like shifting gears in a car. It helps if the patient talks to me first. I only need a few sentences in the right language to kick my brain back to where it needs to be, but since usually I am the one to start the conversation – my brain is doing gymnastics to try to retrieve the right language. I have even resorted to posting a few Spanish phrases on a sticky note that I can reference to get in the right gear before meeting the next patient! I love Silly Linguistics and hearing others’ experiences!
Recognisable and funny!