Liar Liar, Pants on Fire

Although I don’t officially start teaching until Monday, I’ve spent the last week introducing myself to all the English classes and meeting some of my students.  And it’s safe to say…they think I’m stupid and/or crazy.  You may think this is warranted, and sometimes I would even agree.  But this time, it’s not really my fault.  The problem is, my relationship with my students is based on a lie.  I’ve told them, again and again, that I speak absolutely no French.  I’ve had to do this so that they’ll believe they really must speak only English with me – they can’t know that they have a French safety net for when they don’t know how to express themselves.  Most of the students believed me.  Because of this, I’m sure they now also believe that I’m mildly retarded.  Why?  Because no person with more than a few brain cells would ever relocate to the countryside of a foreign country without learning at least a LITTLE BIT of the language spoken there.  But I’ve told my students that I’ve done just that.  And the questions they ask me lead me to believe that they think I’m a lunatic.  Questions such as, “But isn’t that…very hard?”  and “How will you integrate into French society if you don’t speak any French?”  The looks on their faces say it all: “What were you thinking?!”  Although I have asked that question of myself, I take comfort in knowing that I do actually speak French, and I’m not quite as stupid as they must believe of me.  In any case, my cover has already been blown.  The history teacher was doing a lesson on American politics this week, and he asked me to come to the class to answer questions and talk about the 2012 election, the role of the president, etc.  Although I answered the questions they asked in English, the students absolutely saw and heard the teacher and I speaking in French both before and after class.  Since this is a rather small high school, some of the students in the history class will undoubtedly have English classes with me.  And they’ll know my secret: I’m not really a stupid American.  I just act like it most of the time.