I’m constantly shocked by the number of spelling mistakes in the teaching materials at the language school where I work. In a recent lesson on Sherlock Holmes, we had two creatively spelt names to contend with –
I can only assume that Dr Whatson is a relative of Dr Who.
Then we had a worksheet on an important key skill –
– good old gammar.
Not to be outdone, one of my students then devised a painful injury –
Don’t you just hate it when you accidentally leave your crotch in a restaurant?
I was also surprised to get notification that a potential white supremacist was joining one of my classes –
Luckily, he turned out to be neither a Danish Aryan (as we know, spellings are only ever approximate here), nor a white supremacist.
I still smile when I look at the register for my class of 9-year-olds, which makes me feel as though I’ve been transported back to the 1930s, with Gladys (sister of Bernice), Mervyn, Clarice and Brian. Then there’s Muriel, Clive, Eunice, Marvin and Calvin dotted around in other classes, not to mention the very glamorous young woman in my Pilates class called Doris. I just hope they all decide to stay in Asia, where these names are obviously very fashionable for the upwardly mobile middle classes. In England they’re likely to be mistaken for an elderly charlady or a second-hand car salesman.
There was also a pleasant surprise this week, when I taught my weekly class at the Chinese School, and we looked at Irish myths about leprechauns. They had to write what they would wish for if they met a leprechaun and, of course, there were the usual materialistic, grasping desires –
– although a terraced home seems rather modest in comparison with the other wishes here.
But then I came across this one –
– and my faith in humanity was restored.