Student Profiles: Beckham

I've been at this job for eight months now and I still don't know how I feel about Beckham.* Most days he is not at all interested in English, but he recently (and in my opinion, prematurely) switched to an advanced class. I wasn't happy about this at first, since he switched into my absolute favorite class. The class I use to take the edge off teaching his old class, actually.

Fortunately, he's now separated from his other two musketeers, so on his own he's much less disruptive.   I have no idea how this is going to work in the long term, though. The first class was an unmitigated train wreck, but that could just be first class of the semester jitters. The second class is worth documenting.

As soon as I walked in the door, he announced, "Teacher! Couple shirts!"

A spontaneous greeting from Beckham? Unprecedented.

We were both wearing gray shirts, you see. Except mine was a light, semi-sheer t-shirt over a tank top, and his was a dark gray long sleeve thing.

"What? But they're very different!"

"Color is same."

"Well, that's true. Okay, couples shirt."

"Okay!"

After some small talk about their recently-finished exams ("Every subject easy, I am genius."), we got down to brass tacks. I had Beckham and Kristin (the only two students that day) use the mind map in the book to think of ways to describe their best friend.

The next ten minutes of class was dedicated to the biggest whopper I have ever heard a student tell. Beckham told me that his best friend was Park Ji-sung, and then from there it exploded into a ridiculous tale of how he was going to fly to England the next day to visit and play for Manchester United. Oh, and his dad is his own private pilot. And his mom comes with them and cooks food for everyone. And his friends are going, too. And I can come, if I want. His plane is so big it can fit everyone in England. It's the size of South Korea; in fact it's so big that when it takes off and lands, sometimes people die.

"But I am always survivor," Beckham explained, "Because Jesus is my father."

Apparently Jesus is his pilot, not his copilot.

Also, Barack Obama calls and asks him to dinner all the time, but he is too busy studying. And Beyonce is head over heels in love with him, but he rebuffs her advances because "she is not my style."

Hopefully I have more classes like this and less like stony silence.



*Yes, the name references what you think it references.