Teenager-proof Voice

I seem to spend a lot of my time nowadays yelling at teenagers.

In my classes, I have mainly boys and most of them are Turkish. Practically all of them are great loutish kids who seem determined to speak Turkish through the entire class period. Nothing delights me more than getting the odd student from a country where Turkish isn't spoken, but these students are thin on the ground. When I'm lucky enough to get one, I try to make sure that he -- it is almost always a he -- sits between two of my more talkative, boisterous kids who will then be forced to communicate with him in English. Anyone who thinks that boys don't talk as much as girls is welcome to sit in on one of my classes and find out The Truth.

I take roll in the midst of huge pandemonium. In vain, I call out for silence; I may get as much as thirty seconds of it, but then the natural restlessness my students all seem to suffer from takes over and they are back to talking, shoving, and calling back and forth. The fact that we have yet to have a spitball fight in class doesn't mean that it isn't going to happen.

"Mustafa!" I scream, knowing that I should be taking the roll in a calm, quiet voice. Mustafa, sharing what must be a hilariously funny joke with Hasan, ignores me. So does Hasan. After class, though, you can bet that they'll both be at my desk, keen as all get out to make sure that I've marked them down as present.

"Tee-cha, we are present?" they will ask anxiously, pointing at my roll book.

"I don't know, are you?" I am always tempted to rejoin; for the past hour, they've been talking up a storm and only reluctantly consenting to answer the odd question or opening their books to the right page, but sarcasm just sails over their heads. So I tap the register and show them that yes, I have marked them down as present. We have covered classroom language ad nauseam -- all the questions that students may find it necessary to ask me in class such as What does this word mean? and May we be excused? -- but I still get "Tee-cha, break time?" -- by far their favorite question -- and, more rarely, "Tee-cha, what means this word?"

Because they don't listen to me. In fact, I think I must have some sort of special teenager-proof voice that cannot penetrate the adolescent brain. Back in the States when I was doing my teaching practice, I had to project my voice over a room full of noisy adults. Traffic sounds of screeching brakes and honking horns outside wafted through the classroom windows, causing me to further strain my vocal cords. And frankly, classroom management has always been a trial for me, but I look back on that loud, noisy class of adult immigrants with nostalgia. I look back on every class I ever had in Japan with nostalgia too, because most of my students listened to me. Sure, sometimes I had to repeat myself and I almost always went home hoarse, but they listened. As far as Mustafa, Hasan and all their buddies are concerned, I might as well be a noisy diversion standing at the front of the classroom, unaccountably ruining all their socializing opportunities.

Today, though, we had a breakthrough and I'm truly amazed.

The day didn't start out well. Our water pump has some sort of malfunction and in the midst of my shower, just as I'd lathered up my hair, the pipes went dry and once again I had to rely on mineral water to rinse. Chilled mineral water, I might add. Then I found that the kitten my daughter brought home (despite the 'No Pets' stipulation in our lease) had dug up my pot of herb seedlings. My own kids require a lot of shouting themselves from time to time, and they are just as impervious to my voice as my students are.

"Want to meet me?" I asked my youngest. "Our classes finish at the same time."

"Hmm?" she responded dreamily, fiddling with her mobile.

I repeated myself.

"Sorry -- what did you say?"

Sucking my breath in, I repeated my question and the bit about when my classes finished.

"No thank you."

So at school, I anticipated the worst. My morning class is probably my most obtuse and obstreperous, and we'd already had a break in the schedule when we'd gone to see a movie -- Shall We Dance? -- in the student union. Worse still, they were expected to write about their favorite character in the movie, definitely a tall order for this lot. And sure enough, when I made this announcement, I might as well have been asking them to drink plutonium.

Then they started to write and a small miracle occurred: they really got into it.

"Tee-cha, what is main character name?"

"John."

"What is beautiful dancer lady name -- Jennifer Lopez?"

"Um, Paulina, I think."

"Paulina!"

And they were off, pencils scratching, brows furrowed, erasers passed back and forth. Dictionaries came out of bags and were thumbed through. Whatever Turkish was spoken was entirely to do with Shall We Dance? -- even I could tell.

"Tee-cha! What is name of John friend, big friend?"

"Chick?"

"No! Chick is not big -- I mean BIG friend!"

"Sorry, I don't remember. You'll have to describe him instead."

And bless him, he did.

"Tee-cha! How do you say girl has --?" Mustafa held his hands shoulder-width apart and described a curvaceous body in the air, his eyes alight with bare-faced lust.

"A good figure," I murmured primly.

"Good figure? Please spell!"

"It starts with F. Go on -- use your dictionary."

And so help me, he did.

The same group of kids who never stop complaining about how much homework they have to do (a tiny pittance by even the laziest American's standards), were actually reluctant to put their notebooks away. No more "Tee-cha, break time?"

I left the class in starry-eyed euphoria. Maybe I'd cracked the code! Maybe I was finally getting through!

Then I saw the message from my youngest on my mobile: Mom, when do you finish work?