Please calm down, we're not talking about a street here! I'm the French lady in charge of the language corner. Yes Mame! Offering French and Spanish tutoring to the good people of the DC public schools.
In the begining, this was going to be a one-on-one tutoring exercise like everyone else. A church near work organizes this Thursday night study hall for kids from all over the city, where tutors are matched with students from 8th to 12th grade, to help them do their homework. After a stint as a substitute teacher for a few weeks (for students whose tutor didn't show up), I had decided I was ready to commit the time and attention to my very own student.
That's when someone came up with the idea of a language table where other tutors could bring their protégés when facing the troubling challenge of French or Spanish homework.
Why not? After all, there already was a similar math corner. And was I really ready to have my own student, with SAT tests to get ready for when I have never seen one in my life, and American history and all these foreign things to me? So I accepted and when my first Thursday came, I stood as calmly as I could next to the chief supervisor announcing my début (looking as French and Spanish speaking as possible), grabbed a few books from the library (thinking a dictionary and a couple of verb books would add to my legitimacy) and took possession of my blue, rectangular table.
I hadn't counted on the math table's hostility to my coup over their coat table.
My blue table, the new language corner table, had actually been till that day what the math table crowd used to dump everything they didn't want on their chairs and turning it into a language corner certainly took them by surprise. So I had to face some disapproving looks and some (faint) protest when I took over. And I sat there, slightly awkward, slightly embarrassed, but still feeling I belonged, and waited for my first clients. I mean, students.
But math nerds are not so bad and they are opening up little by little. Even though I always wonder whether they are always well meaning when asking me whether I am getting a lot of interest (can't you see it?! I want to ask).
And so far the experience has been quite positive. First because it keeps me on my toes. I kind of learned Spanish through my Argentinian friends and boyfriends so my grammar is far from perfect (perhaps the verb book was for me after all!). As for French, I caught myself brushing up on my imparfait du subjonctif a few weeks ago! Granted, not a tense I would use every other day, but I briefly felt ashamed nonetheless.
And what of the kids themselves, you will ask? It depends on the day, I will say. I am not going to complain about a commitment of barely more than an hour, however challenging (for my patience, mainly). This big crowd of black kids helped by this (mainly but not only) white crowd of volunteers is an excellent exposure when you spend your day surrounding by people looking like you.
But given where these kids are from a foreign language is not exactly a priority.
What's striking me is that none of them seems to understand that to learn a foreign language you have to accept to sit down and just learn some things by heart. Some things can be understood, others come by instinct, but sometimes when they are so foreign to you, some things just have to be learned. And learning for the sake of it is not what these students are used to doing.
So when they have a test coming up (a classic reason for their visit), I often end up just going through some vocabulary or basic rules with them (singular la, plural las, or the whole family members père, mère, etc...), over and over again until I have some hope part of that will stick with them. Remembering my old student days where I would ask my parents to interrogate me until it was clear I knew the answer to every single question (well, it's more the contrary going on here but you see the point).
I've had moderately motivated students, I've had some frankly reluctant students, and one student that looked enthusiastic but only because he wanted me to translate the lyrics of a Lady Gaga song.
At times it's challenging, when you realize some of the kids are used to so little attention that they have very little self confidence. All of that burried under a thick layer of displayed confidence of course. When I asked one girl a question in French a few weeks ago, as she sat, the first thing she did was to raise her hands in defence: ""Wo wo wo! Let's calm down here" she said.
Another night, it took a student's tutor and I one hour to show her that she could actually understand some words in Spanish. I was worn out by the end of it.
So in my last session, when chubby Dennis came by my table just to work on his French pronunciation, I was in heaven. We went through some grammar, some vocabulary. Etrrreeeuuu, etttrrreeuuu (that's him trying to pronounce the verb "être"), he went, marveling at this new sound, certainly not the easiest one to master for a beginner (ask Lumberjack!).
I felt carried away, wanting suddenly to share all the secrets of my language, offering him words like I would with a delicate present, awaiting anxiously his answer to my conjugation question, scrutinizing his face hoping to read his mood inflections.
So that's what it is about, I thought. That's what makes my parents' day even when most of the kids are wild, uncooperative, difficult, if not worse. You put a lot of effort and for a minute, for a second, it's paying off.
I'll have to pause for a second next time I'm about to complain about my job.
