Day 14

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A new class, a new textbook, and a whole new way to fuck up a lesson.

First, the class. Nine mid-intermediate students of various native languages and abilities

I think the babe of the class is Tomaso, who has that Italian way of being classically handsome without being pretty. But there's also the bearlike Pablo and the surprising Israel, who looks Arabic, has a middle-eastern name, but is a good catholic boy from Spain. And if puppydog eyes and motherable mole-like shyness are your thing, there's Satoru.

Oh yes, there's also five women in the class, and I promise you I do also know their names.

Now, how did I fuck it up? Well, I time my lessons on a stopwatch, so I don't overrun my twenty minute slot, and don't mess up the schedules of the trainees who follow. Today, my sense of timing told me I was overrunning badly, but I trusted the stopwatch, and desperately blathered on for an extra fifteen minutes, trying to fill up the time.

As for the textbook, it doesn't help by insisting that the sentences "I'm going to go to the shop" and "I'm going to come to your party" are actually ungrammatical. It also builds lessons around such often uttered sentences as "It'll be a nice day tomorrow", "It's a lovely story, and the acting is superb" and "We're going to get married next year".

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A part of the course is at least six hours of "watching expert teachers teach". I did two of those hours today, watching James. James, with his lack of surname, long hair and goatee, languid style, and soul music playing in the background through most of the lesson, has got to be the most laid back teacher I've ever seen.

I think I'm going to try having music in the background of my lessons. Seeing as people keep telling me I need to relax more when teaching. Not drinking quite so much coffee might help too.

He also mentioned (while defining the phrasal verb "let up") that the leader of the Liberal Democrats resigned two days ago - an event in politics which completely passed me by.

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On the way home, I encountered a Stop The War Coalition stall. Well, a Socialist Worker paper sale with Stop The War posters and slogans.

I buttonholed a paper seller and discussed the current situation in STW and Respect. Here's a synopsis of our respective positions:


Me: Anti-war feeling in the public is very strong, but anti-war protest is weak, and getting weaker. There's a culture of apathetic anger.

Him: Things go up and down. You've just got to keep working at building protests, and keep recruiting people to whichever group suits them.

Me: The Respect project is doing badly because (a) the predicted defection from Labour didn't happen (b) anti-war protesters were more interested in (briefly) joining the SWP and (c) George Galloway is a creepy power-hungry slimeball.

Him: The Respect project is doing well because (a) there were significant defections from Labour, (b) new SWP recruits from anti-war protests are active in Respect and (c) George Galloway is a popular public figure.

Me: Respect can't survive as just an SWP front which stands in elections. It's got to be it's own party, with the SWP as it's left wing. That was the intention set out at the founding meeting we were both at.

Him: Respect was always intended as a broad coalition led by the SWP - one which stands in elections. This was set out at the founding meeting we were both at.

Me: Respect has lost credibility with it's own members in the recent internal fighting. The article published attempting to smooth things over was a fudge.

Him: There was no real infighting, and the article is a clear statement of intent to fix minor problems.

Me: Respect is losing votes in all but a few areas.

Him: Respect is holding ground in areas where it got 9% or more of the votes in the last two elections. It's losing ground in it's weaker areas because it's members there haven't been trying hard enough to recruit.

Me: Galloway is a Muslim Communalist and Respect only does well (relatively speaking) in Muslim areas.

Him: George is a good socialist and there's some non-muslim areas Respect does well it.


So there you have it. Two people without any real political difference between them, disagreeing about everything. Or nothing, according to your point of view.

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