A couple days ago I was offered this awesome job opportunity as an English tutor. I wasn't told many details, but that I would talk with these two kids for one hour once a week and get paid €10 each time. I was super excited to do this because I've always loved tutoring people especially with language, whether it be in Spanish or English. So I jumped at the opportunity!
If you know me at all, you probably know that I'm somewhat of a worrywart so I of course was nervous about meeting the mom, Amparo, and the two kids. I was also nervous about getting picked up in her car since I've never met her before (I could've gotten "taken") and she was a random stranger. I was also a bit nervous about speaking Spanish to her because there is nothing more frustrating to me than not being able to understand someone or worse, for them to not understand me when I speak Spanish.
So I was a big ball of worry as I waited for her to pick me up for my first day which was yesterday. She arrived a bit late and we small talked until we got to her house. She introduced me to her sons Miguel and Roberto. Miguel is 11 years old and knows pretty decent English already. His brother, Roberto, is 8 years old and knows only some words in English. I started talking with them about school and sports and toys and Playstation and whatever I could think of. I realized however that I was only really talking with Miguel because he could converse with me, Roberto couldn't understand entirely what I was saying. He would scream the word in spanish that he could understand in English laughing and burrowing his head in the couch. He also kept nervously laughing and poking his brother asking him "¿Que ha dicho?" or "What did she say?" I tried speaking slower and using basic words to see if Roberto could understand me better then, but no luck. He was smiling and jumping around speaking to me and Miguel in Spanish. I could understand most of what he was saying but he was definitely having more fun flinging marbles with a sling shot at his brother than trying to learn with us. And hey, I can't blame him. Learning another language is hard especially when you have people speaking it to you and you can't understand a word their saying.
I could tell he was getting frustrated and I was trying to use different techniques to help him understand what I was saying. Saying a sentence in English then in Spanish, using hand motions to illustrate the action of the verb, etc, etc. He so wasn't having it. He got up, walked to the computer and turned on Google Translator.
He began typing...
I thought, 'Hey this is kind of cool. He will plug in some Spanish phrase and I can help him read it in English when the translation pops up.'
So it definitely surprised me when he began typing "Mi hermano es tonto, gordo, gay y un elefante." Not only did he (and his brother) find this hilarious to begin with, but he hit the button to make the computer say the phrase in English, and the speakers were on full blast. So here, I have a boy constantly hitting the button making the computer say "My brother is stupid, fat, gay and an elephant" while laughing hysterically and loudly, and me trying to make him stop for fear that his mom would come in the room and ask me why I'm teaching him how to say that about his brother. Even though I wasn't sure what to do, I thought that this was pretty funny seeing that Miguel and Roberto were laughing too. Ah Google Translator, how you help youth learn new languages... hahaha
That honestly, was pretty much the entire hour of conversation. Getting to know these two mischievous boys and helping them (or trying to) with their English was priceless. It was an amazing help for my Spanish and teaching skills and that was only the first day. I can't wait for the next weeks to come! Hopefully they'll be a bit less crazy... ha
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