Hogan's Heroes

Yr 7 German, C7

Not much to say here, really. A bunch of eager little year sevens. I hadn’t found any work left for them before I came in with them. It was looking bleak. What do I do with them? What do I know about German? Luckily, a teacher comes in just as I settle them down and gives me a pink sheet with the teacher’s planned activity written on it. It says: “Make a word search using the days of the week and months”. That’s it, that’s their work for today. Oh well.

I read out the instructions and they start off happily enough – with the exception of one lad, who yells “boring”. I yell it back to him, which seems to get a laugh from the class and puts him in his place. I call for volunteers to write the words on the board (in German), and a half dozen hands go up enthusiastically. This is one of those emergency teacher’s tricks I’ve learned over the years: make use of their knowledge when your own is lacking.

I let three students – all girls – come up and write the words on the board. One of them writes the days of the week, the other two share writing the months. I’ve told the second girl she can write up six of the months, but she writes up seven, the greedy thing. It’s incredible how much they love any opportunity to write on the board. The German spelling turns out to be rather tricky – is frietag spelled ie or ei? etc – but after some consultation they get it right.

As I do the rounds around the room one student asks me if I’m a German teacher. I tell her no, I only know a few swear words and some words I picked up from watching Hogan’s Heroes. She wants to know some German swear words, but I decline.