The Joys of Language.

Monday was a very relaxed day here in the Bell Province.The provincial election was on so there was no school, everyone was cutting work early, and it was generally a slow Monday.So to help kill time and begin to start helping them with their language skills,I decided to spend the day teaching some English to two of my co-workers.Both are new in Canada.Nur hails from Kyrgistan and Sizwed'lhami is from Swaziland.Don't worry I cant say it either.I just call him Sizzle.He's 18 and he's going to be a Hip Hop star and have all the womens in Canada after him.Sure he is.Soooo...as one of my first lessons I chose to work with education through music.No problem.Nixed the idea of starting with the national anthem.Happy birthday cruised by very quickly.Then for something a little more complex,New York,New York.Again painless and it was easy to tell that they were not only picking up the words ,but their relation to one another.So I chose to teach them the chorus to one of my favorite songs- Born With A Tail by the Supersuckers.Great little ditty,and it has a call and return pattern.Perfect for learning as a small group.Lyrics are as follows......

You Know! I'm in league with Satan
You Know!There is no debatin'
My Hellbound Trail
I was Born With a Tail !

Yahoo!Did that get yer blood up?Got me going.Nothing like a little fist pounding rock n roll to knock the corners off a day!Anyway, right from the get go big problems.Had to go to my dry erase grocery list board and start by explaining the difference between know and no,why we shorten words like debating, etc.Long story short after three or four brutal, stop/start, caterwauling renditions I can see by the glazed look that these two guys are just totally lost.They understand most of the words but they just cant piece them together in their heads.So I freeze for a moment and think,what would a teacher do?O.K. after excusing himself,running to the washrooms and sneaking a drink,what would a teacher do?I grasp at straws. "Any questions? ".The Russian guy wants to know why someone would want to play hockey with Father Christmas,Sizzle asks if his Mother is going to find out he was speaking of the Devil,and I decide that maybe its time to end the lesson for today.We work in silence for the last hour or so only chancing side to side darting glances at one another.By four pm., two of us were leaving and on the way to the bus I apologized to Nur if I confused him.He said "Don't worry.Many things are odd here.Why do I make the same sandwich for two hours on Friday?".Well Nur this is the joy of Language " One club,one club for two,one smoke meat,two more clubs,one no tomato,one extra cheese both with salad instead of fries,one no dressing,one fish and chip with a club ,brown bread....".