AND YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS WORTH REPEATING?

Ten years ago I used to tailspin into a cold sweat at witnessing my students' lack of participation, such was my desperation to win their collective approval, but a decade of having my best intentions quashed on a daily basis has brought me to where I is at today - a comfortable place where I couldn't give a macaco's danglers what they do. If they want to act like catatonic extras in an unambitious remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, they can knock themselves out, as Americans are wont to opine.

It's like this - we all troop to the school, we read/write/listen/speak a bit, I'm nice to them and occasionally make them laugh (usually in Portuguese, because life's too short to try joking in English), then we all go home to rest. That's all they can expect, and all I am willing to deliver. They're all thirsty in the middle of the limitless desert of language learning, and as their camel, I am all too aware that the oasis that is fluent English is but a teasing mirage shimmering on the parched horizon, for at least 94% of them.

Occasionally, students surprise us. I have a rather dull but pleasant student, who remains silent so much of the time that I wonder if he hasn't taken a vow of some sort. His normal in-class behaviour is to look alternately at the board and at his pad of paper through his thick-lensed glasses, occasionally frowning to himself, then wordlessly shrugging and scribbling something in answer to his own silent query. If he comes to class or not is very much a question of nuance. Yesterday I found myself staring at his hair, which I'd suddenly noticed had a deep and suspiciously even mahogany tone to it. Did he colour? I wondered absently, or was it a toupé? My late father had something of an obsession with mens' wigs, which I seem to have inherited, alleging vehemently as early as the late seventies that Terry Wogan had at least three, which he'd rotate to make it look as if his hair were growing longer, then whip back to number one to feign having had his mop cut.

Anyway, in last night's lesson yer man surprised me, whilst at the same time confirming why he normally keeps his mouth shut. In answer to the question I'd scrawled on the whiteboard in a lame attempt to generate discussion, namely, "What is important in a marriage?", he suddenly guffawed as if the voices in his head had just told him to run his boss over. "Karate" he offered. "Sorry?" I ventured. "Karate," he repeated grinning, looking at the bemused other students for confirmation of his wit. I just didn't have the energy, or the inclination, for that matter, to explore his rationale any further, my wasting arm was already aching after writing several sentences on the board. "Yes, good, karate," I agreed, obviously humouring him and not actually adding it to the list for fear of a sane person there present asking what on God's sweet earth he was on about.

At least it gives me something to write about, I suppose.