Alaskan Bulgarian

A Good Day, If There Ever Was One

They may moan and groan and act generally pissy when I announce the day's activities, but something in my heart tells me that my students absolutely love making and performing little plays. They work the entire hour without problems, complaints, or too many requests to go to the bathroom; they produce alarmingly good stuff that is creative and usually always gives the rest of the class something to discuss; and they spend most of the class creating things in English. As an added bonus, I spend the day wandering around the room checking work and answering questions about vocabulary and grammar. Everybody wins really. I'd do it more often, but I have a feeling it's one of those things that the students would think gets old after a while.

Today, I did something play-related in all three of my classes. The eights worked on short dialogues that they'll perform tomorrow. The topic is being polite in English, which I think could apply a little to the culture here as well...although I'm torn about that, actually. It could just be a language thing. Any time I walk up to a counter, or service person who speaks only Bulgarian, I get, at best, Kazhete! or "speak!" I have a feeling I'm not to take that literally, that it's not a command like you'd give a dog, but a semi-polite way of saying "yes?" The rest of the time I get silence and head nods or shakes.

However---When the service person recognizes me as a non-Bulgarian, knows English, and uses it (a rarity, but it happens), I get "May I help you?" or something along those lines. It seems that once they know the rules of the politeness game, people here are inclined to play be them to the letter. Although I'm still not sure about all this, it has made me feel a bit better about the service people I once thought were rude.

ANYWAY--they seemed to get the polite thing down right away. And I expect good, dull, dialogues tomorrow full of "would you like"s, "please"s, and "thank you"s. Although I'm sure at least one group will have scene that seems straight out of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David's show on HBO. The customer will get angry, the service person will get angry, and both will engage in overly polite, but pissed behavior. I can't wait for that scene.

In my twelfth class, we began our play unit, where they'll write, produce, and perform a play, in English in the coming months. I have two 12th classes and I'm pitting them against each other in a deathmatch to produce the best play. In today's class, the first I've introduced the idea to, I gave them the basic points of a play, a couple of examples, and let them go to work.

So far, for ideas, one group has (And I'm completely serious here) "Captain Sirosis" where the five combined powers of Vodka, Rum, Mystika, Rakia, and Beer create an unstoppable force for good. I can't wait to see their first scene and plot outline next week. And as for subject matter, I couldn't expect much better out of the six guys that came up with that brilliant idea. As long as they're creative and not obscene, I'll let eighteen-year-olds run wherever they want.

Another group, all girls this time, has "Love for Rent" and they seemed only slightly embarrassed when they told me that I was correct about the title coming from Dido's new single. It's about, apparently, a man who takes a terminally ill woman out of her hospice in the Alps to give her one last go at fun in Paris. They already told me the ending...he dies in a car accident, and she goes back to the hospice to die alone with her last love already gone. I have no idea how or if they'll keep this play out of the melodrama range, but you have to love the effort. It'll be a fun couple of months with the twelves. I almost can't wait for next week's classes.

Posted by Rob at February 16, 2004 03:47 PM