grammar school time

Last week when I came home after one of the English lessons I had taught as part of my new job, I asked Tim to please correct the mistake in the following, taken from a textbook: "The doorbell's ringing. I'm going to go and see who it is."

He said: "What mistake?" Precisely what I thought as beads of sweat formed on my forehead while staring at the textbook in front of me, listening to my student struggle to come up with the correct answer. My only hope was that my student would interpret my silence as a purposeful teaching strategy.

In all of my years as an English teacher, I've never had to think about, let alone explain, the difference between the two simple future forms "going to" and "will." How would you, my dear blog readers explain the difference (without looking it up)? (By the way, if you want to test your grammar, you can see how well you do with the use of "going to" and "will" here.) The problem is, of course, that in real life the two forms are often used interchangeably.

Like many native and non-native English speakers, I use the language, but am not always sure what the rules are or what grammatical forms I am utilizing at the moment. Often far from it, I am afraid. On top of that, I am now supposed to be an expert on grammar, able to explain it as issues arise at the drop of a hat.

To my dismay, the Czechs drool over grammar. Many, it seems, would rather spend time poring over verb participles than loosening up and having a spontaneous, real life conversation in English for fear of failure or humiliation.

Even as somebody who has gone to school to be an English instructor, after a couple of lessons where grammar looms large I find myself feeling inadequate. Sitting in a room full of British teachers who during new hire training spouted out perfectly distilled grammar rules and spot-on explanations like they are family recipes or curses didn't help. The one American in the room -- a writer and college-level writing instructor -- and I sank deeper and deeper into our chairs as the training went on, feeling left behind in the dust of English-as-a-Foreign-Language Teacher Olympics.

Fortunately, since the above-described lesson, during which I sweated bullets, as some say, I have already had a couple that have gone well and with ease. Let's hope for more of those. (And for more free delicious coffee that I am served at one of the companies where I commute to teach nearly every morning!)