The Jig Is Up

I knew there would come a day when the secret would come out. I just didn't realize it would be quite so soon.

Many of the teachers in my school were of the persuasion that it would be best for me to say that I don't speak German, in order to facilitate an environment where the students more or less have to speak English. If they knew I spoke German, then they would use me as a walking dictionary and wouldn't speak English anymore.

Well, the day has come when the cat got out of the bag in 2C. This class is going to present a lesson at the open house about the Stone Age. Don't ask me how or why a second level class is presenting on such a topic, but the head master asked specifically for this class to do it. Danke, Herr Direktor!

Today I was in the class without the teacher, because she had a very important meeting that she couldn't miss. I was in 2C yesterday as well, and it was utter chaos!!!!!!!! I'm not kidding; the students were yelling, screaming, completely unorganized. It was a mess. I told the teacher afterwards, and even during the lesson, that I thought it would be practically impossible by the way they behaved yesterday to present anything to prospective parents and prospective students. I was beginning to loose hope because they were trying to practice their skits, and they didn't have anything to work off of. It was chaos. So, I said, "ok, I am going to assign you a homework assignment, because as it is right now, this is not going to work for Friday. You can not expect to go into a lesson and present this in front of parents when you don't even know what you are going to say. I want you to write a dialogue as homework and bring it tomorrow. I will correct it with you." I thought that at least by doing this, they'd have something on paper that could be useful for them in getting organized.

By golly, when I came in today, 2C had done a complete 180, and were well behaved, had done their homework that I assigned, and were much more calm and less chaotic than the day before. It was amazing. One girl had done an exceptional job on her dialogue, so I had her go copy it and give it to the other students in her group (they are split into two groups: The students from the Stone Age and a teacher from the Stone Age, and students from the present time and a teacher from the present time). Then as I was continuing to correct the other dialogues, the "New Age Students" were practicing their dialogue to perfection! It was amazing. What an incredible thing to see! They were working so well together, and practicing really well. They did it probably 6 times all together. It was great.

Sorry to get off topic. Now, the reason the jig is up is because there would have been absolutely no way for me communicate with the students if they thought I wasn't able to understand/speak German. The teacher told them that I could understand some, and then today it was full on. They all, for the most part, started rattling off full stop in German to me, and of course I was replying in English. They also did try to speak English sometimes, so that was ok, but the novelty that I understood them was like gold. They were so astonished, saying, "SHE UNDERSTANDS US! SHE UNDERSTANDS US!"

One girl, Denise, asked me in German if I had been to the Christmas Markets. I said, well, I went to the one at the City Hall, but only once. Why? And she said that her friend saw me there, and saw me speaking "fließend Deutsch....FLIEßEND Deutsch!!!!" (Translation: fluent German...FLUENT German!!!!). I said, well, I don't know about that...and kept correcting the dialogues.

The secret is out. However, it didn't feel right to deny something that is very important to me, and something that I am proud of. Imagine trying to convince people that you aren't able to do something that you have dedicated a lot of time, effort and energy to. German is something that has played a huge part in my life, and is a huge part of me and my identity. Denying that, saying I don't speak German, felt really wrong. I'm glad that the kids know, but I'll still speak English with them during school time!