WAIT!... Does Jesus even speak English?

"WAIT! Stop!... Does Jesus even speak English?"

You may wonder how this sentence could ever make its way into a grade eight English class. Allow me to explain. But first, I'll tell you some about this unique grade eight English class.

My students are great and constantly crack me up. Twice a week I have a full afternoon with my Sec II+ students - for those unfamiliar to the Quebec education system, they are my advanced English grade 8 students. I am spoiled. There are eight of them and not only do they make me laugh, they also impress me with their English skills every day. 

Like I said, twice a week I have these students for the whole afternoon with Miss Marie-Josee and rarely does any French slip out. For the first half of the afternoon, we work on their English play and for the second half we do "Games with Miss Becca"; thankfully, when Miss Marie-Josee announces this there is a general little chorus of "Yay!" from the eight students. 

The Sec II+ always love the opportunity for some "friendly" competition. Today I played my variation of Scattergories. Please be impressed that my students could come up with:

a) a colour that begins with "S". SALMON! I've played Scattergories a lot over the years and coming up with a colour that begins with "S" is very challenging.

b) a verb that begins with "T". TRANSFORM! Like, seriously? Not "take", or "talk"... transform. Yeah, they rock.

Okay. So that is how my students impress me. Now for how they crack me up.

Today, I was with the Sec II+ students and for the first half of the afternoon we practiced our play. It is their big project and is also to help raise money for the big English trip at the end of the year. We went on a mini field trip to the church across the street (the only street in Les Hauteurs) where we will put on the play later in March. Now, in the script there are a few lines that my students were debating about once we got in the church. They were unsure of how appropriate it was to say these lines in a church. 

The lines are:

"Kyle! You are evil!"

"I swear I'll put it back where it belongs."

It was quite a heated little debate among them. I put my 2 cents worth in, saying that these lines were not that big of a deal. Miss Becca was ignored as they continued on their argument. Finally, Rosa's eyes got huge as she had this epiphany:

"WAIT! Stop!"

Everyone turned to the girl who would have the solution.

"Does Jesus even speak English?!"

They all looked at each other, amazed that they hadn't even thought of this. Crisis diverted ;)