Jack said, "Teacher! Finish!"
By this, he meant he was finished. Jack is not a high level student. He's a low-level student, even in the context of a low-level class. I think he's a fifth grader. I looked down at Jack's quiz. He'd answered maybe 6 of the 20 questions. So his maximum possible score was 6/20 – if there were no mistakes, which I couldn't be confident of.
I said, "This is terrible."
Jack said, fairly quickly, "I am terrible because you teach me that way."
He was grinning up at me as he said it. I knew immediately that he meant it as a joke.
And it blew me away. Not because it was effectively an insult. I have a pretty casual class, anyway, and in the spirit of communicativeness, the kids know I overlook what Korean teachers would not tolerate. No, I was blown away because it was probably the first fully formed, coherent English sentence I'd ever heard Jack articulate.
In fact, I felt quite pleased, because it vindicated exactly that open spirit of communication I tried to foster. Once he had something he wanted to say, he decided to say it.
I laughed. "I see. We'll have to work on that."
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]