funny story

I have a german exchange student (whom we will call Greta, not her real name) in one of my classes and the kids like to ask her about Germany and about how she likes (or doesn't) the US, etc. pretty often. Last week I was walking over to answer a question for a group working on the review to a test and overheard a student ask Greta whether she can speak German. No kidding, I overhear "so, do you speak German?" Greta just kinda stares at the kid who asked, I start cracking up, and some of the other kids around say "She's from GERMANY!" So the kid who asked says, "But you speak such good English." I reply something along the lines of "Americans are kinda behind the times as far as languages go. People in pretty much every other country speak at least 2, if not more, languages." Sue (what we're calling the kid who's asking the questions) says to Greta "But how do you know English so well?", to which Greta replies, "I've been taking English since 5th grade...and Latin and Italian and...."

Holy moly, asking a German exchange student whether she speaks German is almost as bad as the students I had last year who thought Africa was South America and who had no earthly idea where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans were...(they were sophomores and juniors). I seem to be sensing a rather depressing lack of knowledge about the rest of the world. At least the German question was entertaining : ).