English | But I Smile Anyway...

Lind’s prompt for #SoCS this week…

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “language.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

So here we have a poem I penned, which was inspired by a post a wrote a while back. It’s linked to the last word of the poem, if you wish to click through and read!

My mother tongue
is Punjabi
Mixed with accents
of Swahili
But what I speak
the most at home
At work, at school
and on the phone
Is English because
that’s where I was born
To choose a first language
I am always torn
My ‘mother tongue’
or my ‘step mum’ one?
To accept one,
the other to shun?
Or to celebrate
the presence of all three
And to call it
Pun-gli-hili?

Normal – Kids Logic Part 29

It’s not just my kids that inspire me… I have a pupil in my class, I’ll call her E. She is the funniest lil thing. But she doesn’t realise it!

She hates smiley faces, like hates them! One day she came up to me, very upset.

Me: What’s the matter E?
E: G drew on my picture
Me: Why did she do that? What did she draw?
E: A smiley face!
Me: Aw, that’s not so bad E! Us teachers draw smiley faces when you do something we like, maybe she liked your drawing!
E: But I don’t like smiley faces!
Me: Not even a smiley face sticker?
E: No.
Me: Ok, so, if I got you a sticker with words or numbers, you’d like that?
E: Yes.

She says this with a deadpan face, no smile on her own mug either!

Actually, if you smile at her, she really won’t smile back.. I have a thing now, if she does great stuff for me, I sort of blow my cheeks out and make a face at her which makes her laugh! She knows she’s done good, and I get a positive reaction from her!

Anyway, back to the title.

One day we were discussing accents and languages

E: I don’t know what L is saying (L is Polish)
Me: it’s because she’s speaking her own language, she might not understand you sometimes when you speak English
E: I don’t speak English.
Me: Yes you do!
E: No I don’t!
Me: you’re speaking it now!
E: I don’t speak English!
Me: Ok E, what do,you speak then?
E: Normal. I speak normal.