As an ESL teacher, or English as a Second Language Teacher, I do firmly believe that anyone can learn to speak English if they have a mouth to speak with, ears to hear with, and a brain that does at least a little more than hold the ears apart. There are ways to get through to an English beginner who already speaks another language fluently. You use body language, simple, repeated words and phrases, picture dictionaries, and enough patience to melt down the next ice age. But how would it work with an alien who not only didn’t have a green card, but wasn’t even familiar with life on this planet?
Well, the Tellerons in my book Catch a Falling Star already come with a working knowledge of English since they grew up watching American TV programs from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and early 80’s. If you live about nine light years away from Earth, you can watch shows that are older than nine years. In fact, TV helped the Tellerons leap to the erroneous conclusion that we were ripe for conquest. Who wouldn’t want to invade if the enemy were all as stupid as Gilligan and the Brady Bunch? So, let’s suppose the alien youth who enters my classroom straight from the enrollment center is not human, and not a Telleron. Let’s suppose he is from a planet in the Epsilon Indi star system, Epsilon Indi Four. That planet has some interesting kiddos to send my way.
They call their planet Galtorr Prime, in their language “Gaahl Toor Onssi”. They are humanoid in shape, but are actually tailless saurian people, looking all reptilian and toothy-scary. Green and brown are their ordinary scale colors, and their bright green eyes have vertically-slitted pupils like a poisonous snake. They speak only Hiss Language and have trouble making the sounds of English that require a mobile lip. Young Dathoo the Lizard Boy is quite a handful in my classroom.
The first challenge is to get the Hiss speaker to realize that in this country we are not allowed to eat our classmates. Asking the girls to show him how humans make their eggs is a no-no too. Beginning speakers can often get frustrated trying to sort out the wondrous mish-mash of words that is English, but they must learn that not being able to say something correctly the first few times does not require the invocation of the Galtorrian Death Ritual. I also have to remember to teach him to leave his laser plasma gun in his sub-orbital vehicle in the parking lot.
After a month and several trips to the doctor with serrated bite wounds, I have young Dathoo speaking all the important phrases like; “Yes, oh wise and wonderful teacher, I will do that immediately,” and “Teachers deserve to make as much money as corporate CEO’s.”
Okay, so if an alien child from another world wanted to come to my classroom, I could do that. But if it’s okay with the powers that be, I would really rather you picked some other teacher.
Catch a Falling Star 