Communication Quandry

The other day I got a phone call from one of the administrators about a kid she was going to put in my room for the following day.  As usual she told me his name, and for how many days she wanted him to stay in ISS.  Then she paused.

"I think you need to know that he doesn't speak English," she said.

Oh. Really.

"He doesn't?" I ask.  "Where is he from?"

"He's from the Dominican Republic.  He speaks Spanish.  The Aide, Mrs. Multi-Lingual, is going to come out with him, sort of get him started and then he should be good the rest of the day," she said.

"Just curious," I said, "but what did he do to get out here?"

"Oh, he cursed out his ESL teacher in Spanish.  Apparently he didn't like his assignment and got a bit irate."

Oh this is just wonderful.

I grew up in Los Angeles, took Spanish in middle and high school, and at one time did okay with it.  But that was a long time ago, and I wasn't going to get very far with what remained of my Spanish skills.  And this kid apparently has quite the colorful vocabulary.

So I asked my husband to tell me all the Spanish curse words he knew and that he thought an 8th grade boy would use if he got mad at me.  Because my husband spent part of his youth (about five years) living in Lima, Peru and is still pretty darn fluent.  He comes in handy at times.

I was ready to go the next morning.

Curse Boy arrived, as promised, with Mrs. Multi-Lingual who translated and got him started after I did my new kid orientation.  He spends a lot of his time working on Rosetta stone on a laptop (which he brought with him) and he has a Kindle that he uses to translate, so aside from a math assignment and some science, he pretty much sat and did his computer work.

At one point he came up to me, handed me the Kindle and I could read "I need glue and scissors," that he had written in Spanish and it translated it into English for my benefit.

Okay, that was pretty cool.

During the afternoon he walked up, handed me the Kindle and I read, "I am finished with my work."

Okay, I thought...the kid isn't a whiz bang with English at this point, but he seems to get numbers.  So I got him on Reflex Math and he happily spent the last hour doing math fluency games.

He was the model student.  Didn't make a peep.  Stayed in his seat and did his work.

I'd take him back anytime.  As long as he has the Kindle. Or I can get my husband to follow me to work one day!