What drama queens young children are!
Tomorrow is the assembly for my class and I have written a short script to ensure that all members of the form get to say something. The problems of participation are exacerbated by the fact that some of the pupils find speaking in English of major difficulty.
Before you begin to wonder why there should be a language problem in a school which ostentatiously teaches through the medium of English, I might point out that any foreigners arriving in Catalonia with children of school age will find that state school teach through the medium of Catalan, not Spanish. For northern Europeans the prospect of teaching using English would appear to be the better alternative.
But that doesn’t mean that they actually speak English. I am not sure that I understand the deliberations that some of our parents have gone through to allow their children entry to our school.
So, some of our kids can’t really speak fluent English. That doesn’t stop them breaking down into floods of tears if they feel that they have fewer lines in that language than other more privileged speakers!
During our one and only rehearsal last thing this afternoon I could feel my dictatorial directorial impulses rising to the surface. These proclivities reached their apogee during the rehearsals for some play or other in Kettering High School when I found myself treating the actors like chess pieces and virtually throwing them around the stage to get them into position; hauling bodily the more recalcitrant members of the cast and unceremoniously plonking them where I, the dramatic mastermind, determined that they should be.
Limited, time; a few interruptions, howling pupils; unhelpful suggestions; last minute additions; even later deletions; improvisations; suppressed hysteria – all this for a bloody assembly. Just imagine what it would have been like if we had been putting on ‘King Lear’!
We will see what happens tomorrow.
I had hoped that this evening would be the last that I would have to go to our local language school and teach a handful of young secondary pupils English.
I gained (!) this job opportunity when nothing else appeared to be on the horizon and the two hours of teaching in the evenings seemed to offer the opportunity to gain the magic employment number which would make all other pen pushers in positions of importance in this country lessen their importunate demands for something to type into their computers and make me exist on their systems.
Almost as soon as I got this job I was fortunate enough to gain a full time job. It is difficult to let that sentence stand without making some cynical comment, but let it be, let it be.
Knowing that two evenings a week I would have to go to the language school and teach does not add to my store of human happiness and the laughably derisory payment that I am earning for my efforts makes the slog even less acceptable.
This evening was supposed to be the last time that I had to take the kids but I was met by a whining administrating begging for me to take them for a further week. I agreed, though I am at a loss to understand why: all I am doing is ensuring that the company continues to make a real profit while giving me an unreal pittance!
Tomorrow is the assembly for my class and I have written a short script to ensure that all members of the form get to say something. The problems of participation are exacerbated by the fact that some of the pupils find speaking in English of major difficulty.
Before you begin to wonder why there should be a language problem in a school which ostentatiously teaches through the medium of English, I might point out that any foreigners arriving in Catalonia with children of school age will find that state school teach through the medium of Catalan, not Spanish. For northern Europeans the prospect of teaching using English would appear to be the better alternative.
But that doesn’t mean that they actually speak English. I am not sure that I understand the deliberations that some of our parents have gone through to allow their children entry to our school.
So, some of our kids can’t really speak fluent English. That doesn’t stop them breaking down into floods of tears if they feel that they have fewer lines in that language than other more privileged speakers!
During our one and only rehearsal last thing this afternoon I could feel my dictatorial directorial impulses rising to the surface. These proclivities reached their apogee during the rehearsals for some play or other in Kettering High School when I found myself treating the actors like chess pieces and virtually throwing them around the stage to get them into position; hauling bodily the more recalcitrant members of the cast and unceremoniously plonking them where I, the dramatic mastermind, determined that they should be.
Limited, time; a few interruptions, howling pupils; unhelpful suggestions; last minute additions; even later deletions; improvisations; suppressed hysteria – all this for a bloody assembly. Just imagine what it would have been like if we had been putting on ‘King Lear’!
We will see what happens tomorrow.
I had hoped that this evening would be the last that I would have to go to our local language school and teach a handful of young secondary pupils English.
I gained (!) this job opportunity when nothing else appeared to be on the horizon and the two hours of teaching in the evenings seemed to offer the opportunity to gain the magic employment number which would make all other pen pushers in positions of importance in this country lessen their importunate demands for something to type into their computers and make me exist on their systems.
Almost as soon as I got this job I was fortunate enough to gain a full time job. It is difficult to let that sentence stand without making some cynical comment, but let it be, let it be.
Knowing that two evenings a week I would have to go to the language school and teach does not add to my store of human happiness and the laughably derisory payment that I am earning for my efforts makes the slog even less acceptable.
This evening was supposed to be the last time that I had to take the kids but I was met by a whining administrating begging for me to take them for a further week. I agreed, though I am at a loss to understand why: all I am doing is ensuring that the company continues to make a real profit while giving me an unreal pittance!
I need to have a glass of decent wine and stop this uncharacteristic whining!
At least that doesn’t cost the earth here!
No comments:
Post a Comment