“I Apologize in Advance – But These Kids Are Animals”

When I got invited last week to volunteer at the local “colegio” (which in Spain means k-12 school, not college) I had no idea what to expect. I showed up 15 minutes early, (which I’ve now learned is unnecessary in Spain since everyone is consistently 15-30 minutes late) then I felt like a lost little kid in elementary school, because I had no idea which room I was volunteering in. Lucky for me, a nice PE teacher directed me to a fourth-grade classroom, and I walked in and was welcomed by a smiley teacher and a classroom full of 8 year olds who all excitedly switched from “hola” to “heeeeellloooooo” when they found out I’m visiting from America.

What I realized very quickly upon moving here to Spain, is that almost no one is fluent in English. Even the teachers who instruct their classrooms full of kids on how to pronounce basic English sentences are still learning English themselves, so having a “native speaker” in the classroom really means a lot to them. Thank God that my Spanish has improved in the last month, because the minute I stepped foot in the classroom I was immediately interrogated by twenty little children wondering what my favorite color is, if I can do long division, and if I personally know Miley Cirus. (Since of course everyone in California does, right?) I answered back one by one, until the teacher stopped me and told the kids that they need to practice their English – so they raised their hands one-by-one and tried again in slow, carefully constructed English sentences.

At the end of class, (fifteen minutes later, when it was time for me to go to the correct classroom :) ) all twenty kids rushed toward me with pens and notebooks in hand, asking “firma, por favor?” for me to give them my autograph. Apparently, just being from California automatically makes me a Celebrity among Spanish schoolchildren – good to know for next time, so I can wear oversized sunglasses and bring my own pen.

After such a positive and friendly experience, I expected my real class to be even better. I walked up a wooden staircase and down a long hallway, then immediately noticed a very frazzled, but adorably stylish teacher prying her way out of my designated classroom. “Hola!” she yelled from across the hall, closing the door to a room filled with screaming, wrestling, and cussing teenagers. “Me llamo Carmen!” She kissed me on the cheeks like all Spanish people do, then proceeded to explain (in Spanish of course) that I was lucky enough to be stuck with “los malos” – or “the bad ones” – the kids who skip class, annoy their teachers, and have 45 minutes each morning of English class “detention” to help straighten them out. Gee, how lucky for me.
We approached the door, and before I walked in she basically told me (translated from Spanish) “I apologize in advance – but these kids are animals” then grimaced, and walked in with me at her side. The pierced, super-styled and boot-clad teenagers all looked up with interest at me, and after yelling “OYE!” (LISTEN!) she finally shut them up, and introduced me to the class. She told them to ask me questions in English, but they didn’t seem very interested – a good looking girl hit the guy next to her with a shoe, then he pushed her, and they all began throwing paper wads at each others’ heads and yelling insults in Spanish I could barely understand.

After about five minutes of this, Carmen finally wrangled order back to the classroom, and the kids got out their textbooks so we could read a very classroom-y paragraph about a girl who entered her self-portrait into a school art show. I would read a sentence, and then they would repeat it back to me in broken English, pausing every few sentences so I could make sure that they actually understood what the paragraph was trying to say.

The kids looked really bored, and Carmen said I could do anything that taught them English, so I stopped and decided to try a little heart-to-heart to see if that would help. In my best attempt at coherent Spanish, I asked the kids if they like The Simpsons, or Family Guy, or if they’ve ever watched an American movie. They all said “si!!!” and the class clown began making Spanish Bart Simpson references to further my point. “Okay, well in these movies and TV shows you watch, is there language you don’t understand? How about music? Do you understand what The Black Eyed Peas and Snoop Dog (who they love by the way) are saying in their songs?” Most of the kids just looked at each other and shrugged, but a couple of them were actually paying attention. “No, no lo comprendo” [No, I don’t understand it] admitted a cute little girl in the front. And with that, they seemed to understand what I was getting at. English isn’t just some language in their boring textbooks – it’s everywhere in their culture. And how crazy is it to be surrounded in brands, products, and major media that are all in a language you don’t understand? Maybe there is some value to paying attention in English class after all.

For next week, I’m going to bring printed out lyrics to “I’ve got a feeling” and make them translate them from English into Spanish. (Which helps me practice my second language too!) Hopefully they’ll warm up to me… but after getting that first day behind my belt and surviving to tell the tale, I’ve got a pretty good feeling that it can only get better from here :)