Rumours

We had a little excitement at the university I was at today. One of my colleagues was teaching a language class - a SPOKEN language class - and had his thirty-plus students in pairs, speaking English with each other. They were on task. They were using English. They were learning.

Then the Japanese teacher of French from the next classroom stormed into his room, red-faced and shouting angrily in Japanese. My colleague's class was MAKING TOO MUCH NOISE. He should be more CONSIDERATE of the class next door. They were DISTURBED by the noise. He ranted at my colleague for a while, then stormed out again, slamming the door.

My colleague stared, amazed. What sort of teacher barges into another teacher's classroom and shouts at him in front of his students? The students were amazed, too, and stopped their practice to watch the drama. After the angry teacher had gone, they waited to see what my colleague would do.

My colleague, still not over his amazement, looked at his students, shrugged, and told them to carry on. He told them they were doing a good job, and not to worry about it. He was FURIOUS, but he didn't show it. He knows he's 'just' a part-timer, and will get no backing from anybody.

They carried on.

Guess who has to move classrooms? Not the Japanese teacher, who has tenure. But we suspect that the REAL reason this guy was mad was that in that next door classroom he had one student. One, lonely, student. In his elective class. And my colleague had thirty-plus students.

Actually, I'm starting to wonder whether there is some sort of campaign going on against the part-time foreign teachers at this university, with all the complaining that is going on. Last week I thought it was the office staff who were complaining about noise, but it turns out it was Japanese tenured professors (of languages) whose offices are near the classrooms in building ten. This week it is a Japanese teacher of French. The week before there was some Japanese professor of German at a faculty meeting, apparently, who complained about a foreign teacher leaving his classroom too early. All foreign teachers should be punished for this by having their teaching hours cut, he said, angrily.

It turned out that this particular foreign teacher had only two students in his class (the office stuffed up - it was NOT an elective class) and neither of them had turned up that day. So he'd left a note on the board in case either of them came late, telling them where to find him, and went back to the teachers' room to get some paperwork done. He'd waited 40 minutes, and was bored in the classroom by himself.

I'm also wondering whether this campaign (if it is a campaign) is happening because last semester's results of the student evaluations of their teachers and courses were sent out to all teaching staff at the beginning of this semester. Unfortunately the results breakdown included some comparative results - not individual comparisons, but the English teachers were all lumped together. We made everybody else look very bad indeed.

I don't think this is making us very popular.

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The teacher who has the room next to mine today has a WONDERFUL voice. You can hear her halfway across campus when she really gets going, and her normal speaking voice is perfectly audible from my room. She asked me last week whether she was too loud, and should she try to tone it down a bit. (I'm not convinced that she can. She doesn't shout. She just has a beautiful, clear, CARRYING voice.)

I was able to reassure her.

"I don't mind at all," I said. "My students love your classes."

"Oh, good," she said, and then did a double-take when she noticed what I'd said. "Did you say YOUR students?" she asked, and started laughing. "Oh, very funny!"

But it is true. When my students are doing something quiet, writing or whatever, we sometimes hear her voice ringing out and I see them raise their heads and try to listen to what she is saying. They look fascinated. Every word is crystal clear and they know they might be able to understand it, if only they could listen to it for long enough, and if only they concentrate instead of having this stupid writing task. She makes them WANT to understand English, and I've been wondering how I can use this.

I was thinking today that perhaps sometime I'll get them to tiptoe under the windows of her classroom and squat there and listen, and then report back to me. My students are useless at taking notes. It would be good for them. It might also be funny.

Funny is good. Funny helps us to learn. Funny is why the students like our classes. Learning a language is difficult enough. It doesn't have to be dull as well.

(For those who might have noticed, the first part of this post has been edited out.)