I have, with considerable difficulty, refrained so far from filling this blog with teaching stories. Because every teaching challenge that comes up seems at the time to be enormous and insurmountable and obviously the most important challenge that anyone has ever been faced with ever, I follow the universal Rule of What Other People Will Care About, and realize that, to anyone removed from the situation, how infuriating it is when my High Fliers won’t stop fighting each other or how awkward it is when a Waystage 2 student tells an entire class he had a wet dream or how exhausting it is to teach 6 hours straight in one day isn’t really infuriating, or awkward, or exhausting, or even interesting at all – it’s just blurry, and thus boring. Plus, I’d hate for my students to see themselves portrayed in a light that is highly colored by my nervous energy. But (and you knew there was a but) I’m going to make an exception. Because I made the most genius lesson plan ever today, and I am granting myself bragging rights.

I have a small Keystage 2 (low-intermediate) class at night. 4-6 students, depending. Twice a week. This class acts as though opening their mouth to speak to me in English will result in their immediately being beheaded. It’s not because they don’t know English – most of them got at least 85% on their last test – and it’s not because I am intimidating – is it? I’ve had them for almost three months now, and have never yelled at or threatened or punished or killed any of them – but I don’t have any idea what the real reason is. Day-to-day, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I have tried everything in the world to get them to speak: roleplays, debates, putting my ear directly next to their mouths so they can’t whisper ‘…apa?...’ to each other in Indonesian instead of talking to me, sitting silently and staring at them when they sit silently and stare at me, getting Nick, who is an enthusiastic teacher almost to excess, to come in and parade his activities in front of them, etc., etc. The only thing that gets them motivated is competitive, fast-paced games. But the thing is, to get to the point where it is possible to play competitive games in class, students actually have to learn something first, which requires speaking, since EF is a fucking speaking-based school. A speaking-based school, and attempts to communicate with this class go as follows:

Hannah (slowly and clearly): David*, did you have a fun vacation?
David: (whisperwhisperwhisperwhisper, blank stare, giggles, whisperwhisperwhisper) Apa?**
Hannah (more slowly, more clearly): Where did you go for vacation, for Idul Fitri?
Students: (whisperwhisperwhisperwhisper, blank stares, giggles, whisperwhisperwhisper) Apa?
Hannah (you get the picture): Was your vacation good? Or bad?
David: (barely above a whisper): Good.
Hannah: What did you do?
David: (whisperwhisperwhisperwhisper, blank stare, giggles, whisperwhisperwhisper) Apa?
And so forth, until smoke comes out of my ears and I assign them an essay out of pure spite (and unwillingness to carry on a one-sided conversation for 80 minutes).

The thing is, the Keystage 2 book is also incredibly boring. Right now, we’re supposed to be learning about formal English in the workplace, which, I don’t know, these kids are about 14, so it’s pretty irrelevant. But I have to at least touch upon it or I have an entire class failing their progress tests. So today I wrote up two example job ads. One was for someone to sing and dance and play music in funny clothes outside the new music store in town to attract attention to it, and the other was for someone to live in Antarctica for a year with no human contact, observing and recording the weather patterns. I did NOT tell them that they were going to have to interview for these jobs, I just asked them which one they would prefer. Actually, I didn’t ask them, as that would require them to answer. I just told them that everyone who preferred the music store job to stand on the left side of the room, and everyone who preferred the Antarctica job to stand on the right side. Everybody – all 6 of them – went to the left. Not surprising, because any one of these students would rather be drawn and quartered than be singled out from the rest of the group.

And I smiled to myself, because they had all walked directly into my trap.

I told them then that all six of them wanted this job, and only one of them could have it (that was the necessary taste of competition), and that they all had to have an interview with me, the owner of the music store. They did not have to be themselves; they could invent a person who was perfect for the job, and interview as that person. After each had had their interview, I would decide which of them was best for the job. These kids don’t need any incentive, candy or otherwise, beyond simply being able to say that they won. So they all immediately began plotting and planning how they were going to prepare for the interview, and beat everyone else to the job. In the excitement, they all forgot what the job actually entailed, and what the interview was likely to consist of.

Gleefully surveying their preparations, I began writing the interview questions:

What is your name?
How old are you?
What is the highest level of schooling you have completed?
What are your previous jobs?
What musical instruments can you play?
Can you sing? Please sing a song for me.
Can you dance? Please do a dance for me.

Right about at this stage in the writing, students started realizing what they were in all likelihood preparing for.
Lidia: Ma’am! Ma’am! Can I switch?
Robert: I want to go to Antarctica!
Paulo: Can we change jobs?

Oh, now they were speaking. I smiled, shook my head no (to a resounding chorus of ‘Aduh!’s)***, and continued writing the interview questions:

Do you have any funny clothes? Please describe them.
How about funny hats? What do they look like?
Do you have a very loud voice? Please demonstrate by yelling ‘crocodile!’ as loud as you possibly can.
Can you talk to strangers? Please prove it by introducing yourself to the teacher teaching the class next door.
Why do you want this job?
Do you have any questions for me?

I must say here that the first student to be interviewed’s head nearly exploded when I got to the singing question. His thought process was almost visible: Must win… but… cannot…sing… in front… of the scary teacher… must….....WIN….....but….

He sang. ALL OF THEM SANG. None of them danced – they couldn’t bring themselves to go that far - but all of them sang, and they all had to yell ‘crocodile’ and describe their funny clothes and hats and walk into strange classrooms and introduce themselves in front of upwards of twenty of their giggling, whispering peers and six confused teachers, and they did all of this just so, at the end of class, they could be the lucky winner of a fake job in a fake music store for a fake salary.

I think that it is probably redundant to say that, in the Grand Battle of Wills, the score is now:

Silent Class: 50
Hannah: 9000

*These are pseudonyms, but people have amazing, often hilarious names here. That was a veiled reference, by the way. Email me if you want me to list some. It will be worth it.
** ‘What?’
*** ‘Ouch!’, literally, but used for a wider variety of situations, like when you have just realized that you will probably have to sing and dance in front of everybody.