My New Language

Don't expect this post to be about how I am learning Korean, because I'm not. I've picked up the necessities to get me fed and transported, but unfortunately that's as far as it goes.

Instead my new language is terrible English. I have reverted to talking like my students instead of correcting them with proper English. They yell, "confused, spelling!" And I begin spelling, "c-o-n-f-u..," without even hesitating to tell them the proper sentence, "Vanessa, how do you spell 'confused'?"

I speak in fragments such as, "sit, quiet, writing not talking," "homework check," "friday no here." I do all of this while using as much body language as possible. I have invented a new language, or rather conformed to my students way of communication. I have done this in order to get through a day and the material I'm required to finish. When I don't dumb-down my English, I have 5-10 dumbfounded students staring back at me. Therefore, I work at an "English Academy," and if I were to speak in coherent English, no one would be able to understand me.

Now that this revelation has occurred, I'm going to do my best to be a more valuable English teacher. I've also taken up vocabulary expansion, and for the first time since fifth grade, I'm attempting to improve my spelling. It is amusing how becoming an English teacher is making me teach myself English in quite an indirect way. Now if I could only stop saying borrowed instead of lent...