Hard to Understand

This was an embarrassing moment for me, even though it didn't take place in the classroom. When I first started using email in 1994 (I got my first Internet connection from UAB and it was text only since there wasn't such as thing as a web browser then), I became pen pals with a 4th grade teacher from Sydney, Australia. Our students corresponded back and forth for a while but it was very hard since I had to type in the messages myself using the weird commands of a text-only email program. Two years later my husband and I decided to visit Australia. The week before we left, my friend called me on the telephone and it was all I could do to understand what he had to say. I had to ask him to repeat what he said several times. I had been reading his messages using my own accent (except for words peculiar to Australia) and words on a computer screen don't imitate accents. Of course once we got there and could converse face-to-face as well as observe body language, it was much easier.

When we got back to Birmingham and I mentioned that my friend had met us at the airport, one of my students said to me, "Mrs. Buchanan, I thought you weren't supposed to get in a car with anyone you met on the Internet." I had to think fast on that one and I finally said, "Well, my husband was with me and my friend's description matched the one he had sent to me a few days before we left." At least I taught that student something.