An Education

A couple of weeks ago, a friend e-mailed me to say that a friend of his was looking for an English teacher for two eight year old girls and he had suggested she contact me.  As all of my teaching experience has been in further education and with mainly adult learners, kids are way outside my comfort zone.  However, I thought it couldn’t hurt, it would be a job and it would give me some valuable experience in working with kids.

So last Wednesday afternoon I made my way down to a school in Kreuzberg where I was to meet the girls and their parents for an interview.  The girls had been having private English lessons but their previous tutor had left so their parents were looking for another.  The idea was that I would pick them up from after-school club on Wednesday afternoons and walk them home where they would have a snack then have a couple of hours of English tuition.  The mum had to leave for a Christmas party so the dad, the girls and I walked to their home – a palatial flat in a converted brewery complex.  To say that they didn’t exactly warm to me would be a massive understatement; they seemed to regard me with the utmost suspicion.  On the walk home, which took us through the Viktoria Park, they merely shrugged their shoulders or said ‘don’t know’ to every question I asked them.  Once or twice, one of them whispered a reply to dad who then repeated it to me.  Back at the flat, dad left us and we sat around the kitchen table where the pattern of shrugging and don’t knowing continued.  One sat with her hands over her eyes, the other with her head resting on her arms. 

After about an hour of persevering, I left.  I explained to dad that it had been difficult to get them to respond and that whilst I would be happy to return the following week with the materials for a proper session, I would understand if they didn’t feel it would work.

I heard nothing more until Tuesday when I received an e-mail asking me to meet the girls at the school on the Wednesday and give them a trial lesson.

I prepared some exercises and games with a Christmas theme and set off with a slight feeling of dread but reasoning that I had nothing to lose really beyond the cost of the journey.  This time they were a little more talkative on the walk home (although to each other rather than to me, but still it was an improvement on the previous week).    

After discarding our outer layers in the entrance hall – which is about half the size of my living room – the girls had some chocolate cake which must have contained more sugar than a year’s supply of Haribos because within seconds of eating it they both took off like rockets, racing around the flat, squealing, slamming doors and generally going bonkers.

Somehow I managed to persuade them back to the table where I got the session underway with a game.  The sugar-rush was short-lived and they calmed down almost as swiftly as if they’d been shot with tranquiliser darts.

They did get a burst of energy towards the end, when they got up and started hurling themselves to the floor, pretending to be goalkeepers.  I’m pretty sure they will have bruises given the enthusiasm with which they performed this exercise.

At six, after a number of exercises and a game of Christmas bingo, the session was over, the parents were pleased and I got invited to return in the New Year to carry on the sessions on a weekly basis.