TONY BLAIR & WIFE SWAPPING

What did we talk about in the intercambio yesterday? Apart that is, from the usual stuff about why I'm learning Spanish (to escape from a tiny apartment and even tiner office shared with P) and why they're learning English (to escape from a boring job and/or boring family).

So, apart from the theme of escape, what else? Well, Tony Blair for a start.

When he wasn't totally engrossed in stroking Pilar's knee under the table, our flamboyant businessman, Alfonso, had surprised me with some of his outbursts. Outbursts that were all the more striking given that they were delivered with the fluency of a near-native English speaker.

One concerned the recent presidential election in America. He couldn't understand why, given its hoopla and razzmatazz, the American campaign had all the gravitas of a Rio de Janeiro street carnival. Particularly, he added,compared to the Spanish and British elections. Now Spain has just had an election and, to call it dull, would be to give dullness a bad name. And as for a British election, well we're still waiting for that, aren't we?

But it was what Alfonso had to say about Tony Blair that was particularly incisive. Why, he asked, does a man who - more than any other politician of his generation - professes such a strong religious faith and, by extension, the moral high ground, stoop so low in "running after so much money with such empty speeches".

Before I could reply, Alfonso cut in to add that, earlier this year, he had been summoned by his company's head office to attend a speech Blair was giving in Barcelona. Because he was extremely busy at work, he hadn't wanted to go and had tried to get a junior to deputise. But no, he was told in no uncertain terms, it behoved him as a senior manager to attend and represent the company.

Well, I asked, was it worth it?

Alfonso momentarily stopped stroking Pilar's leg - a sign I'd come to realise that meant I now had his undivided attention.

'It was c*** - useless information, useless anecdotes, useless advice. But I had to sit through it for the sake of the company - just like all the others around me. In fact, one of the organisers told me afterwards - and there was much drinking afterwards I can assure you - that Blair had been secretly flown in before the speech and just as secretly flown out after.'

'Why was that?' I asked puzzled.

'Oh, to avoid the British press finding out. And Blair getting more bad publicity for the huge fee being charged. Quarter of a million euros for 90 minutes! That's why they were told by his people to keep the event as secret, as quiet as possible. And why I was forced to sit so near to him for so long.'

And as Alfonso, the wife swapper, continued to fume about Tony Blair, I couldn't help wondering if those words - wife swapper and Tony Blair - had ever appeared together in the same sentence before...

LIFE'S A LOTTERY

Before he rushed off after the last class, Jesús briefly described where our upcoming intercambio de conversación fits in the Grand Plan or plan de educación bilingüe de Andalucía as it’s called here.

He explained that thousands of pupils throughout Andalucía (39,000 to be exact) are learning mathematics and other social and natural science subjects through English, French and German, as part of the ambitious bilingual education project introduced in 2005. Since then, a total of 80 primary and secondary schools in Malaga province alone have been participating.

The idea is, apparently, to improve the overall level of foreign languages by using these languages to teach other subjects on the curriculum. In primary schools, these include Knowledge of the Environment and another non-language course chosen by the school such as physical education while in secondary schools, the school chooses from Social and Natural Sciences subjects such as mathematics and technology.

However, according to Jesús, there is already a sense of anxiety about the entire project. Parents are asking if their children are receiving the same standard of education when they take a subject in a language of which they have only scant knowledge. (The level required in the target foreign language provides them with merely a general knowledge and is generally agreed too basic to be of any real practical value.)

Many pupils, too, have enough problems in learning the subjects in question in their own language. The qualifications of the teachers involved in the project are also being scrutinized since many of them have only a rudimentary knowledge of the language through which they are teaching!

And finally, a problem familiar to those of us in the UK. The case of those successful schools and academies where demand outstrips supply and where a selection system by lottery still arouses enormous controversy. No such qualms here in Andalucía though. Wherever demand outstrips supply, schools simply hold a lottery to decide who’s in and who’s out.

And parents can complain in vain that, while some classes in a subject are given in the desired foreign language, parallel ones in Spanish are all that are available for those who are out…

MISSING IN TRANSLATION...

Jesús is very preoccupied these days. Which we’ve learned to put down to his wrecked housing plans - and marriage hopes too no doubt. But today he seemed even more distracted than usual, rarely finishing sentences or questions, his words tailing off into the ether, seemingly in hot pursuit of his thoughts.

Anyway, during one of his less lucid moments, he asked us if we’d be interested in taking part in an intercambio… At this point, his voice broke off completely as he jumped up and rushed outside with his mobile, vaguely apologizing with flailing arms as he did so.

Immediately the whole class perked up, noticeably one or two of the men who started exchanging sly glances with one another. Whilst they’d recognised the "intercambio" bit, none of them - or us - had caught the rest of it though doubtlessly it was precisely the "intercambio" part that had grabbed their attention.

Now, whilst intercambio on its own means ‘exchange’, what the two men had understood (or hoped) Jesús’s final muttered words to have been was intercambio de parejas or ‘wife swapping’. Little wonder we’d never before seen these two (singles) look so happy or animated. They could hardly contain themselves until Jesús’s return ten minutes later.

He too looked considerably happier, though with Jesús you can never be sure. It could have been something relatively minor like whose turn it was- his or his fiancee’s - to do the shopping this week or something really important like fixing, at long last, their wedding day. Jesús simply doesn’t do self effacement; Jesús does ebullience.

In any event, on his return he put matters right - and the two singles in high dudgeon. Referring to the "intercambio" he’d mentioned earlier, he went on to explain what he’d had in mind. And as soon as he wrote the words on the whiteboard, no one was left in the slightest doubt as to their meaning. Intercambio de conversación. Or face to face conversation with native speakers which is taking place more and more in ‘bilingual Andalucia’ - probably more frequently than wife swapping …

But more on that (bilingualism, that is) in my next post.