‘Are you a girl or a lion?’

Friday, twenty minutes before the start of the lesson. Two of the girls (5 and 6 y.o.) remember about the amazing game they played about a month ago and, immediately, decide to play it again. There is only one rule in the game: to follow the teacher around the school, as she gets ready and fixes the last bits before the lesson and to say ‘I’m hungry. I will eat you‘ to which the teacher offers various things to eat (‘Do you like books?’, ‘Do you like markers?’), *) to which you have to answer ‘No. I’m hungry but I only eat people‘. And you roar. A lot. The other kids are arriving gradually, the hallway is filling up with parents, grandparents, nannies and brothers and sisters.

Friday, five minutes before the lesson. The lion game is getting better by the minute so now there are four lions running around (Did I mention running before?) and roaring. And, believe it or not, four lions roaring make a lot of noise. It’s not that we pretend that kids are made of sugar and they are always sweet and quiet and picture perfect. Kids are kids and they should be but the teacher picking up the flashcards and taking the last sip of water in the teachers’ room thought, briefly, of an avalanche of noise and ‘unwanted behaviour’. The lions did not really care, they were having lots of fun.

Friday, 2 minutes before the lesson. The teacher is ready and is collecting the group to start the lesson properly. Alas. The lions are roaring, more and more loudly. ‘Let’s go!’ (Roar). ‘Please, stop’ (Roar roar), ‘OK, everyone, 10, 9, 8, 7…(Roar roar roar).

The teacher suddenly understands that she is not in the hallway of the school but on the edge of the cliff, on a windy day, on an empty stomach hence double dizzy. The lions do not like those lions that might calm down any time soon. The parents, grandparents and nannies have raised their eyes. The security guard, too, came out into the hallway and was observing the almost-mayhem in the hallway. The remaining 120 seconds should be used to re-introduce the order. The order should be sturdy enough to last sixty minutes of the lesson which is about to start.

You could say that’s not an ideal situation…

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There were four things that I could do.

a) do nothing – not recommended, even if only because of those sixty minutes in the classroom to come.

b) let someone else sort it out – not recommended, not really. True, the kids have parents but at this point in the game, I don’t think I would want them to get involved. That’s why when our security guard (that the kids know and respect) started to saying something, I just shook my head and put a hand up to stop him. This mess was my mess and I had to deal with it. I think this is something I learnt during my five years at the state school – other people might be called to help with the behaviour management but at the end of the day it is your pack and you should be considered its leader.

c) talk to the kids in their L1 and sort it out – not recommended, not really. Why? Because I never talk to them in their L1 and this was serious enough, not yet anyway, to resort to that. I decided to keep it for another day and another occasion.

d) talk to the kids in English – tricky, with 5-year-old pre-A1 crowd but this is exactly what I decided to do.

I had no idea what I was doing, really. There were no previous cases that I could rely on, no plan of action but hey, if I don’t try, I will never know…Challenge accepted.

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The teacher looked at her lions, still roaring in a small circle around her.

‘Now, where are my students? I want to start the lesson. Where are my students?’, said the teacher.

‘We are not students. We are lions!’ said the lions and they roard.

‘That’s a shame.’, said the teacher, feeling how someone continues to pull the rug from under her feet. She took a deep breath. She looked at the first lion on her left.

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A lion’

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ now the teacher asked the second lion.

‘A lion’ said that second lion, with a beautiful smile.

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’

‘A lion’ said the lion and the teacher realised that almost all is lost.

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A lion’, said the fourth lion and the teacher was feeling pretty desperate then. The parents, the grandparents and the nannies were all watching then. Of course.

‘Right’, said the teacher. ‘It is a real shame but the English lesson is ONLY for boys and girls, not lions. I am sorry. Bye bye, lions’, said the teacher waving her hand and started walking towards the classroom. She stopped after a few steps where a little boy was sitting with his mum.

‘Hello, Sasha! Are you a boy or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A boy’ said the boy.

‘Great! Let’s go to the classroom!’ said the teacher and off they went. They stopped again after a few more steps where a little girl was sitting with her mum.

‘Hello, Sasha! Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A girl’, said the girl.

‘Fantastic! Let’s go to the classroom!’ said the teacher and all three went to the classroom.

At the classroom door, they stopped, and formed a line. The teacher opened the door, walked in, sat at the door and started saying hello to the first student in line (a part of the routine). They were in the middle of the chat about howareyoutoday and green pencils and yellow schoolbags, when one more person appeared at the end of the line.

‘Anka!’ she shouted, ‘Anka, hello! I am a girl!’

This was the first of the used-to-be lions and the other three quickly stood in line behind her. A miracle!!! In the end, we had one human teacher and seven human children taking part in this lesson.

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This is a great VYL anecdote, of course, and I am sure, in the years to come, I will be going back to it to smile and to remember how difficult it was not to giggle when a girl-turned lion-turned girl came up to announce (in English) that she changed her mind and was ready to take part in the lesson for humans.

It is also a story about what it might be like to be a student at five and that what the big people see as being naughty (running around, roaring, pretending to be a lion) is just a lot of fun and an opportunity to do something different and to experiment with the ways of the world.

Finally, it is also a story about using or not using the L1 in the VYL classroom. You an use it, you don’t have to but using L1 is not the only way. It is a challenge but it is an interesting one. And it is possible.

Some people do sudoku to exercise their brains, some enjoy complex Maths thingies (that clearly not me), some like to guess the ending of a crime story before it is officially revealed in the final chapters. My brain seems to revel in such child-development-and-language-grading games. Especially when there is the added bonus of a high profile audience, of parents, supervisors or trainees…

I will leave the Spiderman story for some other occasion.

Happy teaching!

*) The text in italics is what the kids said in L1.