The Language Barrier

So, aside from student teaching 8+ hours Monday-Friday, I also coach a swim team and teach swim lessons at a local health club during the week. I may sound like a bit of a workaholic, but that's only because I am.

There's one thing that you need to understand about the health club where I work: it is located across the street from an apartment complex, more of a village really, that is home to just about every Middle Eastern immigrant in our town. These are nice apartments and whatnot; they just happen to be located across from the health club, so a high percentage of our members hail from said apartment village and speak very little English. Now, I have absolutely nothing against immigrants of any kind. Let me repeat: I am not prejudice to any race of people.

I have one student in a private lesson with me that is about five, and his parents are immigrants from somewhere in the Middle East. They are very nice people and so obviously want their child to succeed in swimming lessons. However, I cannot understand hardly anything this kid says to me! I can understand his parents clear as day, but when he talks, it's as good as gibberish to me. His mom has told me that they speak their native language in the home, and since the kid does not go to school yet, he knows very limited English. But apparently he loves Finding Nemo. The English that this kid knows is almost all based-off of the beloved Disney-Pixar masterpiece about that cute orange clown fish and his hard-ass father, the absent-minded blue fish played by Ellen, and Bruce, the hyper-masculine, steroid-taking, Australian shark.

Yet, somehow, this kid can hold a conversation with me using only lines from Finding Nemo. I ask him if he wants to jump in, and his reply is: "Good afternoon! We're gonna have a great jump today!" (also said by Squirt, the baby turtle offspring of Crush) The diving board has been so lovingly renamed "Mount Wanna-hock-a-loogie." When I ask if he wants to kick with a noodle, he replies: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming."

This is not a joke, people. This poor kid is going to go to kindergarten and know absolutely nothing except how old sea turtles are.