Looking gormless

A student’s guide to speaking class.

There has been another repercussion of Mr Bradford’s departure, which is the acquisition of some new students in the unwelcome speaking class that we do with the pre-InterBac students. The problem now is that not only is the class too large, but the boys massively outnumber the gormless girls in the group.

I don’t know how I got lumbered with this class, but someone somewhere seems to have decided that instead of doing some CAS activity with the InterBac students themselves, some of us should have to take care of these lemons.

“Let students take the lead,” we were told.

Have they led? No. Not even slightly. I have to devise something for them every time.

They’re not even my students; I have to suffer them last thing on a Tuesday; they’re an extra class which sucks time out of other, more important things and ensures that my hourly rate of pay (if you wish to calculate it in those terms) drops just that little bit more.

Once again the end of term approaches after we’ve done with term, and no longer care. We ought to time the final exams for the second-to-last (or, penultimate, if you prefer) week of term and then use the final week for marking and not caring; but the further from the end of term we do the exams, the more painful the remaining time becomes.