Delusions of Adequacy

I'm actually feeling a bit guilty this year because of how harsh I'm being on my students. Especially now that they're presenting their first dialogues.

Normally, I try to be supportive. Getting up in front of a classroom full of your peers to speak a foreign language is not the easiest thing in the world to do, and I acknowledge that. I try to get each kid to see that yes, they can do it. I even have them repeat Charlton Comics' hero Thunderbolt's willpower mantra: "I can do it. I must do it. I will do it!!!"

It usually worked for him, except when the bad guys surrounded him and bopped him upside the head. And these days, I have to recite that formula to myself every day just to get out of bed.

And normally, if a student does badly, I immediately try to pick something to praise about his performance as he returns, shame-faced, to his seats. (I say "his" because contrary to popular myth, it's actually boys who underperform and suffer the most ridicule and exclusion in the classroom, and about 90 percent of those who fail their dialogues are boys.)

But not this year. Whether the kids are doing worse or I'm simply a meaner person than I used to be, I am rarely hesitating before unloading on the underachievers. The word "pathetic" has escaped my lips more than once to describe some lackluster performance, with no ameliorating praise to soften the blow. I see quivering lips and averted eyes and know what I'm doing and even relish it a bit.

In my defense, I'm still offering praise absolutely wherever I can, and in many cases when I probably shouldn't. But I'm getting more and more willing to call a failure a failure in front of the class.

Also in my defense, I am setting up the assignment as far in advance, and with as much preparation, as I ever have before. I have made vocabulary and pronunciation help more available than in previous years. I beg, I plead, I cajole throughout the preparation process. I warn them to use every precious moment of practice time I allow them in class to practice, not to socialize, and I walk the room to see to it they're following through. And I give them not a few minutes, not a single class period, but an entire week of prep time before they have to go up.

And ninety percent of my sixth and seventh graders who have presented dialogues this week have gotten up, stared at each other for a while, said hola, shuffled their feet for a few minutes in absolute silence, and stared at each other expectantly, hoping against hope that their partners will carry the conversation for them. This has been, in practically all instances, a forlorn and baseless hope.

So they stand there, wishing the ground would open up and swallow them, while their classmates grow bored and restless until I cut them short and send them back to their seats with a "That was pathetic."

And then I grill them: Did you study your vocabulary sheets? Did you ask me for help with pronunciation? Most of all: Did you practice, or did you socialize?

As the recriminations proceed, I try to emphasize that this failure is no-one's fault but theirs... but in the back of my mind, always, there is the conviction that if only I had done a better job, they would have, too.

And so I am harsh, and so I feel guilty, and so I give them another chance after a couple more days' practice time.

And they blow their second chances too, and all I can do is laugh sardonically while I assign them their F's.