This all happaned in 2006.

I’d been teaching English for a month or so by myself. It was good fun. Houssam and I had always tried to teach together, but something or other always got in the way.

He called me one day to say that Paul was looking for an extra person. I shot off a couple of emails, called a few people and we were both booked in. One week in Frascati, Italy; the other in Tulln, Austria. Frascati was 30 minutes from Rome, Tuln was 30 minutes from Vienna. lovely.

That’s Houssam above. He’s half Indian and half Arab I think. I’m Yellow. They’d paid for English teachers to travel from England to their respective countries. Instead, they got two wide eyed 19 year old chumps who’d just left school and didn’t even look like they could speak English.

The day I left, my ear got infected. It looked disgusting. I felt dirty.

Teaching:

English teachers are an odd bunch. I’ve met ex strippers, ex actors, ex actresses, ex witches and plain alcoholics. The rest are usually a little insane. To live your life hopscotching from one place to another at a moments notice without being paid much usually does that to you. I was paid roughly £130~ plus 270~ Euros subsistence(which was tax free) a week.

Frascati:

I couldn’t believe our luck. Frascati is a small holiday town next to Rome where the rich like to head off during the weekends. The town was on a hill that overlooked Rome and Vineyards. We were put up in a grand hotel at the top of the hill. This was the view from my window.

The teaching was your bog standard affair. Italian children are notoriuosly bad at learning languages. They’re therefore loud and obnoxious. The day’s are spent on crowd control. The teacher I was paired with, struggled a little. I just sat back and laughed at the mayhem. Being a young teacher; only 19 at the time, the children love you. They adored me more than Houssam. I think he was a little jealous.

The teaching set up was 2 classes of 15 children. Teach each class for 3 hours a day for 5 days. I actually enjoyed the early starts. School ended at midday. Now, i’m not a fan of drinking midday, but Houssam was adament. He had decided he was all things Russians. We cracked open the Vodka and chased it down with apple juice. I believe we even had pickles.

At the end of the week, we had to conduct a play for all the parents to watch. My play was the bestest. I believe it was a re adaptation of pinocchio. There wasn’t much talking involved.

On the last night two of the teachers shacked up. Another teacher told us how she was kept up all night by something sounding like a squeling pig. The male teacher involved in said copulation, suggested he was already married to a peruvian he’d just met, but that she’d understand. Teachers.

Tulln:

My pair teacher was Houssam. I was dreading it.

The children were amiable. They all loved Houssam. I was jealous. We took it in turns to turn the children against each other. If I recall correctly, Houssam walked into the room and the children started chanting “Jafner”, “Jafner”. I then walked into his room and was greeted by a full length chalk drawing of me with various armaments. He’d created a whole lesson on armaments and guerilla terrorism, with me as the effigy.

When the children are uncreative, which they were this week, you have to veer them towards a play. I usually veer them towards a blood bath. The children just run around and shoot each other.

Houssam did the oldest trick in the book, a fashion show.

What the idiot didn’t do though, was check their outfits. On the day, his children were all dressed in skimpy tops and bikini’s. They were ELEVEN. (You might be able to see some flesh behind me)

I laughed so hard. Houssam wasn’t amused. I looked at the other teachers we were teaching with. They shook their heads in disbelief.

The teachers were a little crazy. One of them used to be a witch, she also used to be a fundamental christian. Another was a staunch vegan. We were invited out for a meal one time. I bought the veal and watched her squirm as I ate in the most unceremonious fashion.