by Mike Groves

 

You have paid a lot of money for a language class, you enter the class and you are faced with bizarre behaviour. Believe it or not, there are real reasons for English teachers acting like this.

My teacher brings in small pieces of coloured plastic and asks me to move them around a desk, pretending they are people.

These are called Cuisenaire rods. Your teacher has obviously been told by an ex-hippy that they will enhance your learning by addressing the whole learner—or some such other half-baked nonsense. The best policy is to take one and hide it, so the teacher cannot put them back in the box without a gap. Three lessons later, leave it on their chair. If you have never seen an acid flashback, you will now.

My teacher speaks mostly only to me and always asks me to go and write on the board.

Your teacher fancies you. You most likely have a shapely bottom. Congratulations.

My class is too easy for me. I already study the present perfect.

Yes. You have no idea how terrible you sound. You speak English badly. Accept it and don’t turn it into a race to reach level five. If you do, you won’t succeed.

I am an advanced learner. Whenever I ask an important question about the grammar, my teacher tells me that it is to do with collocation.

Your teacher doesn’t know.

My teacher writes on the white board with pens that are so old I can hardly read them.

This has two possible answers. Either you study at an institution which refuses to pay for board markers, or your teacher can’t be bothered to go and get some more. The following clues might help you decide which. Is your school filthy because they won’t pay cleaners, but there is a very shiny Mercedes parked outside? Does the school have a 386 computer at reception and a very stressed receptionist? Or does your teacher not bother to clean his teeth before coming to class?

My teacher keeps getting annoyed when I explain what he is saying to my friend.

Yes. Because he is trying to say something and he doesn’t want the constant murmur underneath it. And while you are explaining to your friend, you can’t listen to the next thing that he is saying. And then you have to ask the person on the other side to catch up. You miss something she is explaining to you. And so it goes on. Imagine you work in a bank, and every time a customer approaches you, another customer translates into a language you don’t understand. Because they are trying to be helpful.

My teacher sometimes walks around the classroom when we are talking together, waving his board marker around and making whooshing noises. Sometimes his grammar goes all funny.

A Star Wars fan your teacher is. Grow up he must.

My teacher comes in, puts on a video of a film that was on TV two nights ago—but blu-tacks a piece of paper so we can’t watch the subtitles. Every so often the teacher stops the video and asks us to discuss.

Your teacher has a hangover. Just be thankful that you haven’t been subjected Wallace and Grommit. Yet.

My teacher puts words on pieces of card and then asks the students to move them around the desks.

This comes from a course called the CELTA—a one month course that takes some determination to fail. The theory goes that if you have little pieces of paper to shuffle around you will remember better. It has not been backed up by any serious study—but academic research into the role of paperclips is seriously underrepresented.

My teacher asks me to speak to the other students in the class, but I know that I can only learn real English from a native speaker.

This is not a one-to-one. You are not the only student in the class, and most likely not the most interesting either.

I have a strong belief system, but I need to do business with people from other countries. Why does my teacher keep telling me I am wrong?

Your teacher is on a crusade to change the world. Instead of studying international politics and engaging with the real decision makers they have decided that they will end global inequality by thrusting their own personal bugbear into people’s faces, with a worksheet. One strategy to deal with such a teacher is as follows.

“What exactly have we learnt today?”

“Well, we learnt about the exploitation of our valuable natural resources.”

“With these seven worksheets?”

“Yes—good. Seven, not several. Well done.”

“And what English did I learn? I mean, what I am paying for?”

“Fluency.”

“Yours or mine?”