Spoonerisms and Gibberish...

You know when you’re talking and you lose control of your mouth and get all your words confused? You spout spoonerisms and gibberish and even though your brain is saying ‘STOP TALKING’ your mouth just won’t comply? Yes it happens to the best of us grown ups, but when we finally manage to bring our vocal cords under control we usually have some support in the guise of our friend/colleague/taxi driver; we both have a good giggle then get on with the day.
But the problem in teaching is that when one of your little angels make such a hilarious error the absolute last thing you can do is laugh. That would be heinous. You either overlook the mistake, perhaps risking a slight grin, or gently repeat the phrase with the correct grammar/language so that the standardised English takes root and flourishes in their future speech. Now that’s Good Practice in action.

But the problem is that neither of these methods take account of the difficulties of keeping a straight face for the fear of damaging a little one’s self esteem forever. And that is one of the most difficult skills a new teacher has to develop.

Maybe it doesn’t sound like much, but picture this: speaking and listening assessment day looms and although it sounds trying you’re actually quite looking forward to it. After all, it means you get to spend a few minutes alone with each child - something that is rarely experienced in the standard teaching day.

So you get Abdullahi, a bright little boy with a wonderful penchant for learning: throughout a story his eyes get wider and wider whilst his cheeks get rounder and rounder, and there’s no way his excitement will allow him to remain sitting on his bottom. Much to your despair. But anyway you take him out and settle him down on a mat, and ask him if he’ll sing ‘Incey Wincey spider’. He nods enthusiastically and takes off, serious faced and wide eyed with concentration. But there’s something not quite right with his recitation - for some reason, unbeknown to man, he has every word spot on except ‘spout’. Which he decides to replace with ‘dye’. Incy Wincy spider climbed up the water dye? Well apparently so. And, I suppose, why not?! After all, according to Thomas we are most definitely going on a bear off; there’s not a hunt in sight. I can’t even attempt to make sense of that one.

Some syntax errors are less amusing but more adorable, such as requests for a round of ‘Amay in a Wanger’, the renaming of a star fish as a sea star (which I actually think I prefer), or the christening of that furry little animal that collects acorns as a squibble. But one of the best that I have come across recently (I have to admit that it’s not one of mine, but I’m prepared to risk plagiarism charges in order to share this one with you) is of the Reception child who was trying to tell his teacher how much he loved pop corn. It just all went horribly wrong. I daren’t quote it here but I’ll give you a clue: spoonerism - p + ck = ?? . I challenge any one of you to keep a straight face to that one…