Charming Broken English

As a Tefl teacher its my job to correct children's grammatical errors (and their job to correct mine), but sometimes they are so charming you don't want to put them right.

Here's an example that happened to me today when I was waiting for a take-away at one of the town's food stalls.

Situation : A young boy (not one of my students) arrives at the stall on his bicycle. He looks delighted to see me.

YB: "Teacher, I speak good English."
Steve: "Excellent! What class are you in?"
YB: (looks confused)

....... there follows a clumsy exchange involving hand waving and writing down of numbers to establish which class he is in.

Steve: "Oh, you are in Teacher Sang-ub's class!"
YB: "Yes"
Steve: "Do you like English?"
TB: "I play footban".
Steve: "Where do you play football?"
YB: "11 o'clock."
Steve: "Do you play football at the school?"
YB:  Yes, I play footaban at sa-cool" (Looks delighted).
Steve: Which football team do you like?
YB: (Blank face)
Steve: "Teacher likes EV-ER-TON. Do you like Everton?"
YB: (Adopts the default blank face of every Thai person I speak to when I say the word 'Everton').
Steve: "Do you like Manchester United?..... Do you like Barcelona?...... Chelsea?
YB: (Enthusiastically) "Arsenal"
Steve: (reluctantly) "Excellent! Which player do you like?"
YB: "Theo Walcott"
Steve: "Why do you like Theo Walcott?"
YB: "He has Top Speed"

The phrase 'He has Top Speed" made me laugh. I realised that alot of the students learn their English from the internet and computer games. Maybe even from an old addition of Top Trumps? The Rubik's cube its certainly huge amongst my first years at the moment. They loved Guess Who! The 1980's were a golden age for educating children.

To his credit the student involved in the exchange above did very well. Primarily as he had the confidence to approach me and introduce himself (most of the student's I don't teach run away embarassed when I ask them anything more complex than "How are you?).  He also stuck with the conversation when I clearly didn't understand some of his responses (not included in the above dialouge).

Regardless of this, Theo Walcott having 'Top Speed' reminded me of this clip from a film set in Thailand:

"Theo Walcott: He has Top Speed" - Por M2/3