As of today, I have had lessons with both of my new Czech teachers and I am thrilled. Yes, that’s right, I have two: one for grammar and general language development, the other for more grammar and professional vocabulary development (so I don’t sound like an idiot while endeavouring to use a library or to explain that I am writing my thesis on Czech theatre). While no one will ever replace my first Czech teacher in my heart – despite emerging from my year living in Prague with a nice collection of nouns, I could barely string a sentence together when I joined her class and she helped me enormously – my new teachers are pedagogically sound, professional and generally impressive, which is lovely after the surprisingly old-school approach of Letní škola.
It transpires, however, that while their teaching is excellent, I am not such a good student. Oh, I learn what they’re teaching me. That’s not the problem at all. My problem consists of my compulsive need to be authentic. Perhaps I’ve absorbed too much of what Václav Havel has to say about the importance of living in truth, but I find it virtually impossible to answer questions designed for controlled grammar practice without pausing to reflect. I interpret the most banal requests as existential conundrums of epic proportions. This morning, my teacher asked me to answer this question: “Of what is there less in Prague than in London?” Rather than rattling off something easy like “Indian restaurants” (in the genitive plural) in response to the above-question, I thought for a good 30 seconds longer than should have been necessary, creating an awkward silence as I nominated and rejected one answer after another. The first answer that popped into my head (my friends!) was honest, but seemed too personal for the first lesson, while the second (drinkable wine) seemed insulting and risked making me look like a wino. Finally I hit upon what seemed like the perfect reply (antisocial behaviour), but then I couldn’t remember the word for behaviour, despite giving a presentation on this very topic last month. In the end, I went for the practical, if random (fresh coriander).
The rest of the lesson, continuing on the theme of comparisons, was an interrogatory minefield – “What do the majority of Czechs do?”, “What is true of a handful of Czechs?”, “Which of these mobile phones is the oldest, largest, lightest?”, “Who is a better student, you or the other students in your programme?” That last one nearly sent me into cardiac arrest, especially after the trauma of evaluating the three phones my teacher and I had between us. (I don’t know which one is the oldest. I can guess, but what if I’m wrong and say something really offensive?!) Rather than subjugating truth to grammar and saying something – anything! – I diplomatically explained (well, as diplomatically as I can explain anything in Czech) that this is an impossible question, as everyone in my programme is working on a different topic and we are therefore not in direct competition. I managed to work some of the target language into my explanation so as to not entirely abstain from the task on ethical grounds, conscientious-objector style.
I think the majority (většina, see, I told you I was learning) of my language class anxiety stems from my experiences as a teacher. I know for a fact that teachers talk about their students. Some of my oddest students have included a Czech guy whose girlfriend’s cat always ate his homework, another who looked like giant baby, was terrified of public transport and professed to be interested in nothing, a Russian twenty-something obsessed with Vladimir Putin to the point that he dressed like him, a Russian girl who despised Yulia Timoshenko and the idea of women taking part in public life and a Turkish guy who managed to insert sexual innuendos and emoticons into the most innocent assignments, including a formal business letter! These are the war stories I tell my fellow teachers, and while they’re often highly amusing, I so do not want to be one of these people. To compound matters, I’m also conducting these classes entirely in Czech; whereas my first teacher knew my (comparatively) sane, (relatively) charming and articulate English-speaking self, these new ones are left alone with my Czech persona, and lord knows what she’s capable of saying!
Fellow language-learners, does this ever afflict you, or am I alone in this absurd linguistic psychodrama? Perhaps this problem will abate with time or increased fluency? It suddenly occurs to me that perhaps the wacky students I've mentioned above had actually adopted those alternate personas in order to cope. Language class as acting excercise? Hmm...I'll have to think about that for awhile.
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