It's Very Formal

Last week me and a mate, Roger, were asked to MC for the Recitation Contest, in which our students also happened to be taking part.

Leading up to the contests, ALTs (that's 'Assistant Language Teachers') work pretty hard with the chosen students, perfecting accents, those tricky r and l and th sounds, gestures, manner, we even try and tease a smile out of them now and then. It's a busy time of year, so you snatch at time when you can- early in the morning when the heaters have barely been turned on or way after school has finished when the dark has long since descended.

So Rog and I had a certain amount invested in the Contest. The winner goes on to Regionals, the winner of which makes the Prefectural or somesuch, there's a progression anyhow, the end of which is Nationals, meeting the Royal Family and dining with them razzmattazz and BigDeal written all over it and my you must be flavour of the month if you get that far. Except my mate Ian, who was subjected to a horribly calculated kind of bullying by a member of his English Department following just such a success. But that's another story, and one I probably shouldn't tell here at all, or so we are Warned.

Rog and I were uncertain over a few of the contestants' names- boy or girl? Mr or Ms? Isn't a bit formal, I ventured to one of the organisers, isn't it a bit formal? They're just kids after all....

'Oh no', came the reply, 'It's very formal', she said, 'Very formal'.

It just so happened she belonged to the same school as the bully. In fact, that school were the organisers of the Recitation Contest this year. Formal they wanted, so formal we tried. I'd even bothered to wear a suit on the day, albeit coupled with my novelty Union Jack socks- and that just about sums up the formality of the following Recitation contest. Shallow. At best.

The judges, the guests, everyone seemed to be working to a completely different script. Barely had we uttered something than one of the teachers from said school would say, from the other side of the room, 'Er, actually, no..' and we'd freeze, everyone would freeze, the poor students got even more nervous and the course of things would be set to rights.

But the most farcical moment came precisely half way through. The First Grade students had finished. The break had finished. Everyone was settling back into their seats. The teacher from the other side of room started gesticulating to us, across the students (sat between us). It looked like he wanted me and Rog to change our seat. Both of us were a bit bemused (why would we need to change our seats??), but change our seats we did, awkwardly stepping around one another, pushing our papers and things across the table as we did.

'No no...' the teacher started, and finally we both realised who it was he wanted to change seats. The students. Of course. Now it was the Second Grade kids go, it seemed perfectly obvious they should sit in the front rows. Perfectly obvious.