Here is another incident in the seemingly growing category of “7th graders making unnecessary random announcements.”
It was a few days ago.
I think we were talking about parables and allegories. Completely out of the blue, Sally’s hand shot up, and, before I could even acknowledge her desire to speak, she said, “Teacher! I don’t need a boyfriend.”
“Well… good,” I responded, cautiously. Then I asked, “Why are you telling me now?”
If there had been some boy in the class, just then, pestering her in some way, I could almost have seen it as a kind of oblique comment intended to discourage that kind of thing, but in the event, there were only 3 girls in the classroom just then.
Sally shrugged. “It’s important information.”
Another girl, Michelle, nodded knowingly. I suspect this was just the conclusion to some discussion between the two girls that had been proceeding in Korean some time earlier.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that many of these inexplicable “announcements” made by students are most likely much more explicable to their peers, who are in a different, broader social context – the kids have their ongoing, not-during-class interactions, mostly in Korean, with each other. I should feel that it represents a kind of success in language teaching, that they choose to “code switch” into English to express these off-topic thoughts.
Regardless, as the clueless adult in the room, they are often mildly entertaining.
[daily log: walking, 7km]