If we were to take our students’ grammatical grasp of English as a direct indication of their level of intelligence, and were to recognize their shared narratives as a true representation of the depth of their days, then our classrooms would serve perfectly to display contained, mental and spiritual wastelands.
Monday morning, in English class:
-How are you all doing today?
(silence)
-How was your weekend?
(silence)
-Did you do anything interesting?
(One unfortunate guy looks up at a pretty girl sitting across the room and then mistakenly makes eye contact with me and freezes.)
-So? What did you do?
–Nothing, teacher.
-Nothing?
(The student, either coming to the metaphysical realization that even ‘nothing’ is in fact ‘something,’ or else aware that his participation grade will suffer from the brevity of his response, goes on.)
-Met my friends.
(I briefly contemplate interrogating him as to how, if they were already his friends, he could have ‘met’ them, as if for the first time, but deem it a dead-end.)
-And what did you do with your friends?
–Nothing, teacher.
(My facial expression suffices to display my dissatisfaction with his cop-out reply. He acknowledges this and goes on.)
–We go cafe.
-We go cafe?
–We went cafe, teacher.
-We went cafe?
-We went a cafe.
-We went a cafe?
(His friend attempts to cough the answer into his ear: ‘To! To!’)
-We went to cafe, teacher.
(‘To-a’, his friend hacks up, ‘to-a!’)
–We went to-a cafe, teacher.
(The potential follow-up questions are clear–‘Which cafe? What did you talk about? What kind of coffee did you drink? How many sugars?–but I decide to allow us all to continue our lives, albeit in ignorance of his potentially riveting replies.)
I stand in front of the class and speak my native tongue, which happens, at this particular point in time, to be the closest we have to a universal language. This piece of pure luck has secured me teaching jobs all around the world.
“I see here on your C.V. that your first language is English and you have a university degree. When can you start?”
When my students inquire as to my educational background I try, as tactfully as possible, to conceal the fact that I was a philosophy major.
“How long did you have to study to become a teacher, teacher?”
“Well student, I believe that the best educators are in a perpetual state of becoming.”
“…tamam, hocam (ok, teacher).”
Teaching English was not (initially, at least) a vocation for me but rather a way, upon graduating from university, to live abroad and see new places. My training came immediately (and quite stressfully) in the classroom. I endured soul-crushing stretches of discouragement and a nagging sense of unfulfillment so that I could learn a new language, meet new people and live the ‘ex-pat life.’
Years later, in Istanbul, as I introduce the new grammar topic of the week, ‘present continuous,’ my students provide ample, pertinent examples:
‘Look–Furkan is sleeping…and he is drooling.’
‘What is ‘drooling,’ teacher?’
I point to the compact pool of liquid forming atop his notebook. They erupt in laughter and one takes a photo, undoubtedly bound for Snapchat.
‘And look–Idil is playing a racing game.’ I nod towards a girl holding her phone horizontally and swaying her body from side to side, mimicking the sharp turns of the simulated road.
They laugh and she looks up for the first time all class.
Some of the students get it–that a firm grasp of English is crucial, not only for their university studies, but for their careers and (if they wish to travel outside of Turkey, or to at least have some foreign friends) their personal lives, as well. The best students are often hardcore ‘gamers’ who learned English because they needed it to communicate in their international, multi-player tournaments; or those obsessed with popular culture, who have seen every episode of ‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Lost.’
But many of the students are there simply because they have to be; they couldn’t care less about the past perfect tense or how it may be useful for them in the future. If I think back on my middle and high school French classes, I can’t say that I was any more aware or engaged than they are. Learning another language was sometimes funny–mocking accents and scribbling down bad words–but mostly it was just a boring necessity.
It wasn’t until later, out in the ‘real world,’ that I discovered the power, importance and even pleasure of learning a new language (as well as, eventually, the joy of teaching my own). The moment I ceased having to be a student, I became an eager and dedicated one. And, as a teacher, to once again be a student, has been a great practice in humility.
Monday evening, in Turkish class:
‘Ya sen? Hafta sonu ne yaptin? (And you? What did you do at the weekend?)’ my teacher asks, singling me out just as I had done to my poor, unprepared student.
‘Evet hocam, dondurmayı çok seviyorum (Yes teacher, I really love ice cream).’
‘Dondurma mı? (Ice cream?)’ she asks, with a tone and expression I immediately recognize.
Thanks for what you do !!