Sunday, November 16, 2008

Kisses and Insolence

Apparently, the word “sick” is difficult for non-native speakers to say. The man can be sack or suck, but he is never sick except for the first time the word is repeated. Then, and only then, is he sick.

I play Go Fish a lot. Sometimes I use regular cards, and sometimes I use cards made from vocabulary flashcards. One of the 6-year-olds (p.s. I believe this phrase is actually six-years-old) I teach struggles with like/have and word order. So we play like this [pronunciation included], “Kaeet, joo laeek a seben?” “No, I do not have a seven, go fish.” Feelings (i.e. happy, sad, hot, cold, etc.) Go Fish took an ironic turn when one girl correctly said, “Kate, do you have a hot man?” This was perfect use of the new vocab adjective and I replied, very truthfully, “No, I do not have a hot man, go fish.” Oh child, little do you know!

Other funny stories including the 6&8 year old sisters—The first day, they were under the impression that I spoke very little Spanish. While this is somewhat true, I understood everything they were saying. Each of us was drawing a picture of our families. When the younger one (I’ll call her Sarah) began to draw her older sister (I’ll call her Helen), the older sister’s eyes landed on the page and she realized that she has been drawn roughly the size of a medium-range dog. They begin talking in Spanish. “Sarah, why did you draw me little?” “I just did.” “Draw me bigger.” “No.” The oldest one then slides her hand across the table and leans in with her best no-nonsense adult voice and taps the table, “Sarah you know that I am older than you, now draw me that way.” [arguing from the younger sister] “SARAH, I’m older than you, and you know it. Draw me that way!” The youngest one resentfully turned the figure into a representation of her infant brother. The size comparison still worked.

As with many younger sisters, however, Sarah was plotting revenge. I saw her narrow her eyes and smile wickedly. She then held up her drawing and said (with a little bit of a taunting voice), “Helen. Whoops. I drew you with a third leg.” I look over for the reaction and notice that a small inferno seems to have ignited in both of Helen’s pupils. To deactivate the situation, I said loudly and in English, “Hey, look, I have a third leg, too.” This startled both of them out of their fight as they tried to figure out what to do with this new weird teacher. Then I decided to draw myself with a fourth leg because three looked awkward. So, Sarah drew a fourth leg on Helen and then gave me the picture. Now, I have two pictures of families where the oldest daughter has four legs. Awesome.

2 comments:

Anne said...
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Anne said...

um yeah why am I basically the same size as the dog?