Next Friday

In the morning I have a corporate training class at Bangkok Jams limited. The training manager has complained that I’m not gearing the lesson towards the needs of the students. The fact that their primary need is simply to distinguish the difference between the ‘he’ and ‘she’ pronoun is lost on him.

I prepare an ambitious lesson based on the present perfect ‘have you ever’ question word followed by the past participle of the verb. After familiarizing them with the structure by asking them questions such as ‘have you ever been to Lumpini Park?’ and ‘have you ever seen Last tango in Paris?’ I remember the words of the training manager “Gear the lessons to their needs”

So class “How many of you have ever fallen into the jam?”

Silence

Have you ever dropped a jar of jam?  If so, what flavor was it? (I thought that added a nice twist)

Silence again.

“Excuse me teacher. What’s jam?”

My Saturday students have all cancelled so I have the rare chance to hit the town tonight. One student is burying her grandmother for the eighth time this year. Still let’s not dwell on the possibility of it being a white lie – it’s Buckskin Joe Village for this here language instructor.

And as the sun goes down and the night owls come out to play, I’m sitting on a barstool next to a chubby Isarn girl called Noi. I’m nursing a bottle of Super Leo and wishing I were anywhere else. After a marathon session of 4-in-a-row, she eventually asks the question that we all dread “you work what in Bangkok?” She probably wouldn’t understand the expression ‘language instructor’ so I regrettably plumb for the more universally acceptable “I’m a teacher”

“Oh, Bangkok have teacher too much”