by Danica Dimitrijevic

You arrive at the college where you’re supposed to spend 3 weeks learning real English with real native speakers in a real environment. You find out the college belongs to the Salvation Army, and that there is absolutely no smoking or drinking on the premises. You spend the first evening drinking incredibly expensive beer and smoking even more overpriced cigarettes on the lawn in front of the college, only to discover that this is prohibited too. But we can freely smoke outside the campus (oh, raptures! oh, the generosity!) in the street, where the wonderful icy London wind is likely to tear your head off. It’s the middle of July, by the way.

I would hereby like to express my gratitude to the Salvation Army for helping me quit smoking.

At the placement test a black guy enters the room, and you think: Great, a real live black guy, and I’ve only met three of them in my native city, how cool...until he opens his mouth. He turns out to be a hot-shot MA from Sierra Leone who can’t speak English. He makes terrible mistakes, corrects you if you don’t pronounce the final “b” in words like “dumb” and “comb”, and during the part of the Listening when you’re expected to show you can distinguish between long and short vowels, you discover that he can’t. “Ship” and “sheep” sound exactly the same. Spotting our bewildered gazes, he says: Listen, there is a difference (pronounced like the French word, with the nasal vowel and all). You complain to the Manager or whatever that dear old lady’s position is that the guy doesn’t know English. She says Well, he speaks in a dialect, and you’ve only been taught RP in schools, so that’s why you’d think that. You sigh, and decide not to ask in which dialect of English you could find a phrase like “He did thought I am dumbe”.

(Mental note #1: The customer is never right if s/he is a “dumbe” EFL student.)

The other teacher is a smiling blonde middle-aged woman who thank God is a real Brit. We play Find Someone Who and Imagine You’re on a Desert Island in all possible versions, and discuss totally mindless stuff. If, however, the argument becomes a bit consequential to some of us, the topic is instantly changed. For instance, we read a boring article about a techno DJ (nobody in the room likes techno) who says at one point that he was the one who commercialized U2. I wake up from a deep sleep and mutter “He should be shot at dawn.” The teacher’s smile freezes and she mentions the weather or something like that. Or if she shows us war pics and, being from a country that has just been in a war that lasted 10 years, some of us have something to say about it, she won’t let us, ’cos it’s too controversial.

Waiting for a bus later that day you run into her. You think it awkward to stand next to someone you “know” and not say a word. She does say “Hi” and “Terrible weather, isn’t it” and something about her sons without looking you in the eye once. So, naturally, you ask her how old the boys are. She gives you a horrified stare and you regret having asked such a personal question.

(Mental note #2: Small-talk at the bus-stop other than weather is rude when you’re with Brits.)

That night, you decide to go out. If the pub isn’t too expensive, it’s karaoke night and you have to listen to drunk tone-deaf fat middle-aged women scream unrecognizable songs into the mike. So you end up in Peckham, in the Nag’s Head. It’s better than you could’ve imagined—people talk to each other, laugh... Some of them ask you to resolve an argument over a language issue—whether it’s ping-pong or table tennis and you say both are possible and are allowed to chat with them. First you talk to an Irish bloke who seems quite intelligent and informed and happens to distrust BBC news like you do. Only you can’t understand a word he’s saying, and he understands even less of what you’re saying. So you try RP, General American, Cockney, but to no avail. Eventually, when you’re sufficiently wasted, you try imitating him—all the ellipsis, all the funny sounds, speaking as fast as you can, until you don’t understand yourself anymore. But he does, and nods, chuckles and replies at all the appropriate moments. He’s by far the greatest guy you’re to meet while in London.

Then you talk to a Welsh-Scottish older man. You get used quite easily, instructed by previous experience. He seems great. He buys you drinks, you have an argument over Nato (you’re not exactly thrilled with its role in the world, and he’s served as a soldier in it), but you resolve it civilly, he tells you about his problems with his daughter, you comfort him, he opens his heart to you, you talk all night like father and daughter, you part like friends, and you think, What a nice guy. Then you run into him the next morning, and greet him cordially, and he won’t look you in the eye, and mutters about being so sorry for his behaviour and so on...

(Mental note#3: ??!!?!???!?!??!?)

(Mental note#4: Brits apologize if they reveal traces of humanity. This only happens when they’re drunk)

Where was I? Oh yes. After a few more people you meet in the pubs when you’re all boozed up fail to acknowledge your acquaintance the next time you run into them, you discover Irish pubs. People there are surprisingly as cordial in the daytime as they are at night. Perhaps the proverbially reserved Anglo-Saxons are friendly only when inebriated. Perhaps this is the case with the Irish too, only they’re drunk all the time.

In the meantime, you realize the entire course is organized by Italians. You think with a smile that this might account for the chaotic state in which everything is. You try to talk to the organizer about a few minor issues (like why the heck should we 18-year-olds have to return by 2 AM every night or stay locked out), and find out that this charming woman speaks little or no English, so your complaints are futile.

They take you to excursions, all expenses paid. You discover that this includes only the coach fare. Museums, castles, even churches, charge ludicrously expensive admission fees. You decide you can afford to see one castle, and (just your luck) it looks exactly like the fortress in your native city.

There are no guides, and you’re just transported to, say, Oxford, and the coach door opens and someone says “This is Oxford. Enjoy.” The majority of students looks baffled for a while, wondering why the heck they were brought there, and then somebody discovers that there is a shopping centre in the town... You try to see at least some of those nice old university buildings, but have no idea where they might be. After a long, exhausting search in which you happen to stumble upon a few, you think nothing’s worth the bother and decide to go to that CD sale advertised all over.

Being the nag that you are (only if you pay a lot of money and receive little in return, actually), you complain. A “guide” is granted you for your next trip. She is nervously skimming through a few pages about Canterbury taken from the Internet last night as you enter the coach. She tries to read some of it to the group, but the mike’s broken and she just passes it around. You see an old castle on the way. You ask her what it is. She says: “It’s an old castle.”

(NEWS FLASH!)
You will later look back on this utterance of hers with nostalgia.

Mixed-group activities are organized: Fun & Games, quizzes etc. During a quiz, a Korean student deemed rather slow by the teachers is placed next to you so you might “help” him. He is by far the most intelligent, educated, well-read, heck—the most brilliant person you’ve met there. He says he keeps quiet in class because the discussion topics are soooo boring and brainless. You bow back to him in reverence every time you see him for the rest of the course.

Most of the time nothing at all happens, and this is termed “free sight-seeing time” on your schedule. So you go sight-seeing. All the people on the bus look absolutely despondent. They gaze apathetically at an imaginary spot in front of them, or give you angry looks for daring to break the silence by talking to your friends. The bus driver tries to rip you all off when he realizes you’re foreigners. He takes your fivers and tenners and claims he hasn’t got any change, although you can plainly see other passengers giving him single quids. This, you learn, has happened to other students too. And not just that.

It seems that wherever the lower-level students go, they’re treated as dimwits, just because they can’t speak English so well. The teachers tend to act this way too. They assign childish tasks and discussion topics to perfectly mature and well-informed people who just happen not to be proficient speakers of English. This is not so in all the cultures, just those completely unaware of the fact that there are other civilized nations in this world, like Brits and Americans.

The first rays of sunshine in three weeks shyly appear just as you’re headed for the airport. You’ve learned a lot: bring loads of fags and booze the next time you decide to come; lager is what you’re used to—other types of beer taste kinda funny to you; stay away from karaoke... What you haven’t learned, though, is English.