Who Has an Accent? Plus, a Trip to Birmingham

It always amazes me when someone asks me where I'm from and that they like my accent.  Accent?  I'm not the one with the accent--they are!  The accents around here are just so fascinating to me, and apparently, the Black Country and Birmingham ("Brummie") accents are something of an enigma in England.  I remember my English friend and hairdresser in Colorado Springs, Andi, telling me, "Just wait until you hear that Birmingham accent," and she attempted to imitate it.  I can't imitate it.  I think I am pretty good at doing "foriegn accents", but I can't do this one!  It seems everywhere I go, people are asking me, "What do you think of our accents?"  Even my cab driver this afternoon (yep, had to take a cab home again) asked "What do you think of the way we speak?" and I got into yet another conversation about the difference between the Brummie accent and the Black Country accent.  When I went over to Carol's house for dinner (tea) last Friday, (and had a much-needed night of laughter), she and her husband, Phillip, demonstrated the regional "broad" dialect.  Now, apparently people in other regions, such as London, sort of look down on the way people in the Black Country or Birmingham speak.  But I don't know why.  There is definately a distinct difference--just like there is a distinct difference between a Texas accent and a New York accent.  But I love hearing the people around here speak.  I do sometimes have to listen very carefully to understand every word--especially with my students--but for the most part I am having no "language barriers" except for the occasional word or phrase that throws me for a loop!  (I'm trying to compile my own Brummie/American phrase guide for this blog.)  Like I've mentioned before, it's not just the regional pronunciation of words that's distinctive, it's also the sing-songy, unexpected up-and-down lilting of the spoken word.  (Do you Steele people hear it in Ms. Barrow's speech?)  I happen to think it's beautiful.  But I cannot imitate it!

But speaking of the children, can you imagine what a challenge it is to teach a phonics lesson when you don't pronounce things the way the children do?  For one thing, the kids at age 6 are learning sounds of letters and letter combinations instead of the letters themselves.  So they will spell words with their sounds instead of letters.  (And I have to say, the result is that lots of them have pretty strong phonics skills.)  That's hard enough on me to have to teach that way, but when you add pronunciations on top of that, it makes for. . . um. . . interesting lessons.  When the letter combination being taught is, for example, "ay", I will pronounce it as a long a, as in "may", but the children pronounce it as almost a long i, as in "my".   But we do somehow seem to be understanding one another--most of the time. 

Yesterday Father Paul, the school's parish priest who looks a bit like Harry Potter, brought his "little friend, Benji" to school to visit the children who were delighted.  Benji is the little white Westy dog that Father Paul found neglected and abandoned some years ago and nutured back to health and happiness.  I had my students draw pictures of Benji a couple of weeks ago, and they gave Father Paul the pictures, so Benji came to say thank you.  Father Paul lets little Benji think he's a big, tough guard dog, so the children are instructed to make sure they don't tell him otherwise.  Benji also will play a very important role in the Christmas nativity.  He will be the sheep.

Speaking of Birmingham, I spent last Saturday there with Rachael's sister, Sarah and had a wonderful day.  Birmingham is England's second largest city after London.  It was heavily bombed in W.W. II, so it does not bare the antiquity that London does, having lost much of its Medieval architecture, but it still is a mixture of old and new and is quite a lovely city.  There is a huge outdoor organic market where you can buy anything from vegetables I've never seen before to duck eggs to middle eastern fabrics to even cooked ostrich!  It definately had character and international flavor and diversity.  (The market, not the ostrich.)  I loved it.  We saw armed police (I'm talking machine guns!) walking about and we asked a bobby what was going on.  He told us that it was the Torry convention.  As I understand it, the three main political parties in England are the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats.  I think the Torries are the Conservative Party.  I remembered a history lesson or two from my childhood about the Torries, so I thought it was pretty cool that I was standing outside the convention hall where Torries were meeting.  Sometimes it just doesn't take much to amuse or amaze me.  We had lunch at Jamie Oliver's restaurant. (You know, the British bloak who's campaigning in the U.S. for healthier school lunches.)   I was a bit daring and had lemon risotto with bone marrow in it.  Enough said.

I'm looking forward to my little weekend get-away to Wales with Julie.  I've always heard how utterly beautiful Wales is, and I'm anxious to be at the coast.  Wasn't Richard Burton Welsh? 

Okay, here's the really exciting news.  Today I pulled the trigger and booked a trip for the October mid-term break to . . . VENICE!!  Of course, I kind of felt like throwing up after I booked and paid for it because am I crazy for thinking I can travel to Venice all by myself???  But I'm doing it!  I'm in Europe (kind of), for gosh sake, and that's what Europeans do--they travel!  When in Rome!  (I mean, Venice!) And, I'm just kinda thinking it's now or never.  You only live once.  This is my once-in-a-lifetime shot.  Why am I trying to justify this???!!!   And what I can't wrap my head around is--get this--I will be be picked up at the airport in Venice and taken to my hotel . . . by water taxi!!  Don't expect to see a picture of me (provided I ever figure out how to do that) in a gondola because I think that's cheezy.  But, then again, you never know.