Two weeks into my certification course I got an email detailing my first potential "Class." It was a hour and a half long with a three and a half year old boy named Mario. This confused me because classes with children less than seven years old were supposed to be a maximum of one hour long. An hour was apparently all the attention span of a young child could handle.
As I re-read the email I noticed a note in parenthesis that I missed the first read through: "We wouldn't normally accept a 1.5 hour class for such a small child but as you can see below his grandfather is Irish." I guess an Irish grandfather is worth a fifty percent increase in attention span...
Over the next few days I asked my TEFL instructors how to approach the class. My lead instructor had this to say: "Oh wow. Uhh I would watch a video the last half hour. There's no way the kid will have anything left at the end. How old did you say he was?"
Even more encouraging was my children specific instructor: "That's impossible. I'll lend you my Twister board, but a few years ago I had a four year old for an hour and it was miserable." It would be okay, I told myself, because his grandfather is Irish...
I wasn't really sure what to prepare for the first class, but I was hoping to get to know Mario, gauge his English level, and maybe play some Twister. The last third of my lesson plan went out the window as soon as got on the bus and realized I forgot to bring the Twister board that my instructor lent me. A shaky start indeed.
Luckily I had plenty of time to get to the lesson, as my TEFL class ended at 3:30 and my class with Mario started at 6:00. Mario's apartment was on the same street as the metro station I got off at, so I was able to arrive at my destination without getting lost. No Lost in Madrid Part ll for this guy!
I rang the apartment number and a woman answer in Spanish. I had not prepared an answer in Spanish so I said, "Hi, hello, this is Ben, the English--" I was cutoff in the middle of my sentence, which worried me, but then the door clicked and I was let inside.
This is a long post. Take a Youtube break if you need one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM
I walked in, and got the feel of a very upscale apartment.A receptionist eyed me for a second before asking me in Spanish where I was going. I gave her the name of Mario's mother as well as their apartment number, and she gave me a curt nod and returned to her novel. As I climbed the marble stairs I really started to wonder how I was going to fill a hour and a half with this three and a half year old kid.
The first words between Mario's mother and I mirrored many of my conversations thus far in Spain.
"Hello."
"Hello."
"Hablas Español?"
"Un poco."
Her eyes were very warm and she seemed like a nice lady. "Mario! Look who's here!" I followed her eyes to see a little light skinned boy with curly brown hair sitting on a couch looking at a laptop screen. "Mario look!" The boy did not move an inch. "Well, he's shy."
I walked over to the couch and sat down. "Hi Mario." No response. "My name is Ben." Nada. "I'm from the United States." Crickets. "What are you doing?" ....... "Are you using a computer?" More silence. I was beginning to seriously doubt my ability to make it through ten minutes with this kid let alone ninety. "I think you can hear me Mario. Do you like football?" He didn't respond verbally or move his eyes from the screen, but his mouth started to break into a smile. "Oh, you do like football."
I found a ball amongst a very large pile of toys and brought it over to Mario. "Do you want to play?" For the first time, his eyes moved from the laptop. He looked at me and smiled, then slapped the ball out of my hands and let out a vicious boy giggle.
After ten minutes of playing with the ball we moved on to coloring. He knew all of the colors and the names for pen, pencil, crayon, and marker. Instead of coloring himself, he preferred to hand me markers that didn't work and then laugh his head off when I feigned surprise at each markers failure to produce ink.
After some pillow fights and wading around in the pile of toys, Mario's father walked in with a baby girl in one hand and a dog leash in the other. The dog was a husky named Wolfy and the Mario's sister was named Irene. Interestingly, Mario's father explained to me that when the family spoke in English they said her name with an English pronunciation and when they spoke in Spanish they said her name with a Spanish pronunciation.
After the introductions it was the halfway point in the class so I went to the bathroom to take a breather. A couple minutes later I walked out into an empty living room. I called Mario's name, and then went looking for him around the house. After a couple of minutes I gave up and asked his father if he had seen Mario lately. He just laughed and told me Mario was probably hiding.
We walked into Mario's room and first looked into the closet. Nope, nothing there. Then we lifted up the bed skirt and looked under the bed. Nothing but a square, green box.Mario's dad squatted down and motioned for me to look. I got down on a knee and sure enough, Mario was curled up in a little ball inside of the green box. I was impressed!
For the remainder of the "Class" we played with toys and watched Pixar shorts, with me trying to insert English conversation whenever possible. At last, 7:30 rolled around and as I got up to leave Mario's dad asked Mario if he wanted me to come back. He smiled a young, unpracticed smile and nodded. After a hug goodbye I was on my way down the marble stairs, my first lesson in the bag. It may not have been a standard English class, but hey, it was with a three and half year old kid for a hour and a half. Even if his grandfather is Irish.