I hated teaching languages. It was the part I dreaded every year (not because of their difficulty but because of my disinterest in learning them). Yes, language-learning was a compulsory part of the school curriculum, but that didn't make me dislike it any less. It's not as if it was going to be used by me anyway, because I hated hot weather, so there was no way I would be off holidaying in sunny Spain any time soon.
Still, it had to be done.
Last night, I'd been brushing up on my "holas" and put together a nice little powerpoint for my pupils. Of course, it was filled with all the same old boring, unnecessary phrases such as "Jaime te gusta jugar el fútbol" or "mi nombre es Julia", because everyone would need to know those sorts of things if they went to Spain, wouldn't they?
Ah, the joys of primary school teaching.
At least it wasn't as bad as P.E. I mean, on the plus side, I didn't have to get changed into jogging bottoms and a polo neck t-shirt just to stand at the side and blow my whistle a few times. For god's sake, I was in my late fifties. Nobody needed to see my bingo-wings.
And it wasn't history either. I didn't give a damn about what the Tudors did in sixteen-something-or-other and which countries were involved in the flipping British Empire. Did that make me a bad teacher? Nah - I still managed to give my students the impression that I wasn't bored out of my tree most of the time. Maybe my forte was in Drama, because that was really all there was to the job. A good spot of acting.
If little Jimmy fell over and grazed his little knee in the playground, you know what, I couldn't give a damn. But, of course, I'd have to go through the whole "Aww... come here darling, let's take you to matron for a plaster," routine, when inside I'd be thinking grow up, you little squirt – it's not even bleeding.
It really was time for me to retire.
So when my class came in for Spanish on Monday morning, I put on the "happy, caring teacher" face as-per-usual. First in was popular kid, Ely, with his entourage and the last to enter was the newly dark-haired Emma, by herself as always.
She was a strange kid - not only because of the way she looked now, but because of her incredible intellect. I'd marked her work. She was talented, definitely very bright, her numeracy skills were exceptional, but her English work was certainly unusual for a child of her age. That was one way to describe it. Normally, when a child started writing stories about death and murder, it was a cause for concern. With Emma, it just seemed normal.
As I said, she was a very strange girl.
When the word "languages" came out of my mouth, my class groaned. It seemed they were as thrilled about the concept of learning one as I was. Still, I tried my best to convince them we were going to make it a fun process, with lots of games and prizes for the kids who could learn the most words every week. That perked them up a bit.
"Alright, everybody, we're going to start the lesson by getting into groups," I began. Group work was always appreciated and it looked good if the headteacher decided to pop in to observe my lesson. I could see the kids immediately searching for their friends, so they could buddy up when I gave them the go ahead to group up. However, they were soon disappointed when I announced I had already chosen them.
"Ely, Maria, Lily and Thomas on this table." I pointed to the chairs nearest the front of the classroom. "Samuel, Ethan, Jaymi and Kayla at the back. Martha, Robert, James and Emma-" I could see immediate disappointment on the faces of the children I had grouped with her. "on the right. And Jessica, Dylan, Cara and Mary on the remaining table."
Chairs scraped the floor and feet shuffled. There was a lot of giggling and groaning as my class moved into their groups.
"Settle down!" I raised my voice – something I had found myself doing a lot lately. It seemed with each year of teaching that passed, the shorter my temper grew. "Maria?"
"Yes miss?" Little Maria goody-two-shoes' eyes grew excited at the prospect of a job. She knew I liked to choose her to hand out things. Over the past terms, I'd cottoned onto which kids enjoyed attention and which were the trouble-causers. Maria was a typical teacher's-pet type.
"I'd like you to hand out the whiteboards and pens – one for each table. They're in this drawer." She was already out of her chair and heading towards the front of the room.
"Right, everyone," I continued, whilst she performed her duties, a big smile plastered across her face from earning another teacher's-pet point. "When you receive your whiteboard and pen, I'd like you to choose a person to write (of course this would cause arguments, but did I really care?) and somebody to read out what has been written. Your task is to write as many words as you know in any different language."
"But we're only learning Spanish!" clever-clogs Cara shouted out. Little madam.
"Yes, that's right, Cara," I replied, trying to remain calm. "But, as I just explained, I would like you to write words from any language – not just Spanish. But, if anyone does know any Spanish words that would be even better." The kids all looked expectantly at me, so I shouted "Go!" with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. Then I settled back into my chair to have a few minutes of relaxation before the proper teaching began.
"I wanna write!"
"No! I said I wanted to write first!" were many of the arguments I could soon hear. I blocked them out.
I gave the class five minutes to answer (it was tempting to make it last longer, but it wouldn't look good if the head walked in and clever-clogs Celia told her "we've been writing about other languages for ten minutes.") And, yes, I did have my reasons for asking them to not just write about Spanish; I knew some of the kids had previously learnt French (of course, they were now having to learn Spanish, which made complete sense) so it would give them a confidence boost to be able to write something down on their whiteboard. I wasn't completely unfeeling, honestly.
"Time up!" I stood up from my chair after five minutes. All heads were raised immediately. The power I held over the class made me feel so great sometimes.
I went around the class to hear the answers. Lily remember "bonjour" and Kayla "au revoir". Thomas even remembered how to say "le football". How clever. Of course, clever-clogs Cara had to outdo everyone with a word of "actual Spanish", as she put it.
"'La playa' is 'the beach'," she informed me, smirking. I resisted glaring back.
Finally, I came to Emma's table. Surprisingly, she'd actually chosen to be the speaker (obviously nobody else would have elected her).
"We came up with quite a few words," she announced, her voice high-pitched and sweet. Almost too sweet. "Martha knew that "flower" is "fleur" in French. And I know a few words of German."
"Really?" It wasn't a common thing for primary schools to teach German. "Did you learn it at your old school?"
"Yes," she nodded, almost excitedly. "I know that "good day" is "guten tag", goodbye is "Auf Weidersehen", "how are you" is "wie geht es ihnen" and..."
The list went on.
"Okay, thank you Emma. Very well remembered!" I interrupted when she paused for a second. Goodness me, that child was clever. She never ceased to astound me.
"I'm not quite finished!" she said. I groaned internally.
"How many more?"
"Just one!" She sounded so happy, I couldn't bear to not hear her final word.
"Go on then." I nodded approvingly.
She cleared her throat then continued, "I also know that "Tod" means "Death."
