Our time in Europe was slowly and sadly coming to an end. We had experienced so many amazing yet heart breaking things in our week and a half journey. Four concentration camps, beautiful cities, over night trains, duck, and terrarisum. At that point in time, I forgot about what it was like to live in America.
As the door opened, twenty-five eyes stared me up and down. It felt as if there were lasers going through my whole body. Had they not seen an American before? The teacher had a huge smile on her face, "Welcome" she stated in her best english, " please sit where ever you make like". As I sat in the middle of the classroom I could still feel the laser ( polish students) eyes on my back. I mean I understood that I stuck out like a sore thumb but I was a person to.
All of the students were in there last year of high school. They were preparing to take the biggest test of their lives in just a month. It would determine which University they attended in the fall (similar to our SAT). Luckily for me, Kasia brought me to an english class. So I was able to follow along very easily. The teacher made them do various tasks out of a workbook. She gave them about twenty minutes to complete the task and encouraged me to do it along with the other students. After she was done giving the instructions, all the students started asking me questions about America.
Have you ever been to the Statue of Liberty? Do you go to New York city a lot? Could you read my essay for this class that's due in a week and see if my English is correct? Do you think the actives in the book are easy? Do we even speak proper english one of the students asked me?
There was a hundred million questions coming at me all at once. The truth was they spoke better English than half the people in America. They could spell better than I could ever fathom. Then the English teacher put me on the spot and asked me to speak about what I liked more in America then in Poland. Then she asked me the hardest question yet, what did my classmates and I think of the camps?
I could I even begin to answer this question? I said it the most evil thing I've ever seen and that I was luckily enough to be able to go to Europe and study this subject in order to go home and tell my classmates about how this atrocesity should never happen again. Everyone was pretty impressed with my answer, they even gave me a round of applause. At this point I never wanted to leave Poland.
I have no doubt that people who are studying English in foreign countries speak the language a lot better than native English speakers; I think that they probably learn English in its purest form, whereas we learn it intermixed with slang and other variations. This sounds like a really cool experience, great post!
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