If you don't understand, just pay more attention...

The sage advice I got from my teacher, Martin, today, when I told him I didn't understand the video he had us watch, was that I had to watch it again and pay more attention. Now, even if I were watching a video in English and a teacher told me that, I'd think it was bad teaching, but here was someone telling me that all I needed to do to understand a foreign language was to pay more attention!?!!

I was kind of dreading Martin's class today. Last time I had class with him, I played hookey and went to see the Madres in the Plaza de Mayo. I did see him yesterday and he seemed a little humble compared to last Thursday. He was in the little office with the big open window where the clerks sit and he came out and kissed me when he saw me. He asked about my health and said I looked better. I'm guessing that Claudia told him I told her that he kept calling on me and I didn't know why, but who knows. He did mention the fact that Nancy and I slipped out and when I told him we went to see the Madres, he didn't seem to think that was a valid excuse. But hey, I'm paying for these classes, I have every right to miss a class if I want to.

So today, he told us we were going to go to the Multimedia (computer lab) to do some listening comprehension. Uh oh. Every time he has brought us there, it spelled trouble. We watched weird tango videos and a strange student film. What were we going to do today?

First he had us listen to a speech given by Eduardo Galeano, an Uruguayan writer, at a conference in Italy. It was clear, interesting and easy to follow. What happened? Was Martin beginning to understand what our level was?

It was a very good speech in which he talked about the hypocrisy of the existence of the UN, when it is actually the Security Council that has all of the power, and only 5 countries belong - these 5 - UK, US, France, China and Russia, are the 5 biggest arms producers in the world and are supposedly in charge of maintaining world peace. He also talked about the World Bank, the IMF and other international organizations that are really in charge of things.

Once we finished that, we had to listen to part of a documentary on anarchist music (punk) in Venezuela. I understood nothing. I listened again. I understood very little. Martin came over and I told him it was difficult. I was falling asleep. He told me that I was in level 7 and should be able to understand this. He said, "just pay attention more". Oh, it's that easy! Here I was struggling with understanding this video and the secret was right there - I just had to pay attention more!

I told him I was paying attention. He suggested writing down the words I hear and trying to figure out the meaning from that. I told him the problem was that I couldn't hear words. He told me everyone else understood. Implying that therefore, the problem was with me. I was really pissed off (once again).

He walked away and I tried listening again. I wrote down words when I heard words, and what I wrote made no sense because I'd hear a random word every now and then.

I looked over at Daniel, who was sitting next to me and his head was bobbing up and down as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

Martin told us we could take a break and I asked the others if they understood. Everyone said it was difficult and they didn't understand anything. I told them all to tell Martin, because he thought it was just me.

In class, we had an interesting discussion about the Galeano video. Cynthia did not agree with him and said that there are strong countries and there are weak countries and it will always be that way. She said that when there is democracy, people criticize and Galeano was not offering any solutions, just criticizing. I just loved that - the solution, is to impose total control, like in China, and then people won't criticize and the strong will be able to dominate the weak!

I told her that his point was to point out the hypocrisy of the UN, and the "free media" which doesn't really report what is happening and who is in control and how money is being made from arms sales. It really could have been an interesting discussion, but Martin had to tell us what he thought and he effectively put a damper on our enthusiasm to talk. It was the perfect topic for a discussion because we all understood what he was saying and there was a difference of opinion and everyone had one. But, Martin blew it.

When we got to the anarchist video, everyone fessed up that they didn't understand. Martin did not blame us like he did me in the computer room. I think he got it.

When he was telling us about the exam, he told us to write as much as we could on the writing section. I told him we do what we can do, meaning that if we could do more we could. He responded that we shouldn't be lazy.

I really can't stand this guy anymore. I think he doesn't know how to teach language and is so caught up in being a revolutionary/intellectual, that he comes off as being insulting and pompous. Thank god we only have one more class with him.