The first class I sat in today did some drills with activities. Among them there were jogging, yoga, dancing, volleyball, and going to see a play. Some of them knew what jogging was, and they all had their own Yemeni version of dancing in mind (which was not pictured in their books), but none of them, including the teacher had any idea about the others. I’ll give the teacher credit, he knew that one “does” yoga instead of playing or practicing it… They then started to talk about an imaginary “International restaurant” and the various types of foods that it offers. The book mentioned Italian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and even Puerto Rican(!) but once again, none of them really knew what was involved with any of them. The books that they use seem to be noticeably more worldly than the typical Yemeni…
The second class was a little more advanced and was taught by a Russian woman in full nikab. She had an odd accent that was a combo of Russian and Yemeni, but she was completely understandable. They read along with a tape of a ridiculous, by Yemeni standards, conversation of a guy running into a woman on rollarblades and striking up a conversation. That tape was interesting in the fact that they were exposing the students to different accents. They got an Argentinean and an Indian on the tape. It’s good to give them an idea that there are many different accents and they’re all acceptable, there’s no “right” one.
I had another conversation about slang today. A couple of guys stopped me after class and asked about learning slang from me. After I established that they had been listening to hip hop, I cautioned them on the dangers of using slang outside of the culture that creates it. I also told them that it was very easy to accidently offend someone if they didn’t really understand the language well. One of the guys responded, “Yeah, so I guess we shouldn’t use nigger talk…” OK, see, that’s a great example of a problem. I was a little offended, but imagine if he told a black guy that? We do have a black teacher from Canada, I’m glad they asked me that and not him….