Thirty students aged 15 or so, all quite accustomed to using this language lab, come traipsing in. Each pupil sat in a booth and put on the headset provided, waiting for me to start a tape of oral exercises which the class was required to repeat. The aim was to improve French pronunciation and confidence in oral French. There was no subtle peer pressure since no-one could hear what anyone else was saying. I could, though. As the teacher, I could flip a lever (unbeknownst to the student) and listen in, even addressing the learner privately through the headset to give encouragement or make corrections, if need be.
My students waited for me to start the tape recording. The tapes had been recorded by French speakers from France. I thought that they were beautiful, and the exercises were cleverly devised to give maximum oral practice. I wished I could have had a language lab when I was in high school studying French. Maybe I would have been more familiar with the spoken French of France when at 20 I had gone to live and work in France. Instead, I had hardly understood a word that was said to me, though, to be fair, I was in a tiny village up in the mountains of the Massif Central, miles from anywhere, where the locals spoke in a weird lilting southern accent, a far cry from Parisian French.
Though it shocks me now, teachers of French in England and in Rhodesia spoke only English when teaching, so I addressed the class to explain which exercise we were going to do and what we would be practising. I reminded everyone that I could listen in without their knowledge, and that I expected good participation and model behaviour.
So far, so good. I sounded perfectly relaxed, but competent, as if I knew exactly what I was doing. I was about to begin, and thought all was going well until I added one last sentence, a reminder to my pupils that if they needed to talk to me privately during the lesson, they had the means of letting me know. They could press an appropriate button in their booth, which would activate a small light, causing it to flicker on and off on my console. I would then know which student in which booth was trying to contact me and could answer accordingly without anyone else hearing me or knowing of the student’s question.
“So, one last reminder,” I said, “if you want me, just flash me!”
Immediate laughter broke out! Great guffaws of it, especially from the boys! And I had no idea why. Nowadays, I would probably ask my students, but I was anxious to get this lesson rolling, so I pressed play on the tape, and everyone settled down.
However, I needed to know why that sentence had caused such hilarity, if only so that I didn’t repeat it.
