Levi has a new job at a language center in our neighborhood, so I’ve taken on a few of the private lessons he had to give up. I’ve also taken on quite a few new lessons, presumably New Year’s Resolution cases. So now, in addition to my three four-hour days at the high school, I have ten hours a week of private lessons. No, a 21-hour week is by no means strenuous, but my classes stretch across eight to twelve hours each day and are bookended by racing around town to various locations, and at the end of the day I’m actually feeling tired.
Three of my new students are teachers with high levels of English; this is the easiest ‘work’ I have ever done. They’ve all requested simple conversation practice, so the job is to pick a topic and spend an hour bullshitting about it, explaining idioms and unfamiliar vocabulary along the way. All of them are interesting, intelligent, friendly people, and I actually feel a bit guilty taking money for having an enjoyable conversation.
I inherited ten-year-old María and twelve-year-old Álvaro from Levi’s class schedule. Both are smart, curious kids and who are bored senseless in their English classes at school. The English curriculum is the same for every year of school; it’s only the pace that changes, and that only slightly. I recently discovered that the tables of contents in the books of all eight levels of English at my high school are identical; the only difference is that the lower levels don’t make it beyond the halfway point of the textbook. So for a motivated, intelligent student, English class is mostly verbatim repetition of the same handful of topics for years on end. Neither of these kids want to review anything from class; “It’s justo soo easy,” María always moans when I ask about her homework. So I’m picking up where Levi left off, teaching them verb tenses and vocabulary that many of my seventeen-year-olds wouldn’t understand. They’re both sweet and eager to learn, and I love watching those little light bulbs go on.
Marta and Rita are both fourteen and far behind in their English. Marta is friendly and interested in putting forth some effort, but Rita reminds me of my oh-so-pleasant self at that age, scowling when asked direct questions, checking her cell phone incessantly, and patently refusing to do any of the studying I ask of her. I always leave her house feeling immense remorse for my own teenage behavior. Sorry, Mom and Dad…
The strangest addition to my schedule came just last week, when the gym teacher at school approached me about a job opening for which I was literally the only available and suitable person in town. His son and said son’s girlfriend run a daycare center together and were looking for a young woman to come twice a week and just speak English to the kids—teach them ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ and colors, maybe send them home singing American nursery songs. It sounded hilarious, so I gave him my number.
So I come in on Wednesday for what proves to be one of the funniest hours of my life. I walk into the place to find twelve two-year-olds seated at tiny tables in tiny chairs, their hands folded politely in their laps and their eyes searching me expectantly. Carlos and his girlfriend Mavel walk around to each of them, asking them to introduce themselves, but only a couple of the bravest souls can bring themselves to say their names. I tell them my name and say ‘Hello!’ as I wave to each of them. They’re astonished; never in their lives have they heard something so strange. Noelia, the boldest of the group, gasps and asks me in a squeaky Spanish, “Savannah, why do you talk like that?!” Mavel, suppressing her own laughter as I’m roaring with mine, explains that I’m from a different country, a faraway place with a different language. Noelia can’t believe it. She doesn’t take her eyes off me again for the next hour.
We pass out cardstock pictures of beach balls to fingerpaint yellow, hoping to begin teaching them colors. I walk around with the fingerpaint, demanding the word ‘yellow’ of them before I let them dip cautious little hands into the paint. Most of them produce various adorable mispronunciations and giggles. I get to Marta, one of the youngest of the class, and ask her to say ‘yellow;’ she instantly bursts into terrified tears.
Later we sit on the floor together and I teach them ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ and ‘stand’ and ‘sit.’ Three of the girls have adopted me and are climbing over each other, each hoping to be the one in my lap. Mónica perches on my knee and plays with my hair, her gaze transfixed and as she runs her fingers through it, barely blinking. “What long hair you have!” she says with the kind of amazement usually inspired by miracles and double rainbows.
As I’m leaving, Noelia races up to me and begs me to stay. Mavel tells her that I’ll be back on Friday. The little girl tilts her pigtailed head to the side and looks up at her teacher. As if explaining something very simple to someone very stupid, she slowly says, “But we’re playing right now.”
••••
My kids at school are slowly but surely chipping away at my “I don’t speak Spanish” charade. When I arrive in class this morning with my first year bilingual group, I was instantly subjected to a carefully-planned attack, naturally all in Spanish. Each of five or six of them had a detailed piece of evidence against me.
“I heard you speaking Spanish on your mobile once.”
“I asked you a question in Spanish once and you answered me.”
“You said ‘hola’ to my mom on the street!”
It was only a matter of time, I suppose. Small town.
