One sweet ego trip many second language teachers take is students picking up our little verbal anachronisms. And they do, somewhat--but much much quicker do we begin to speak like them. And TO them, unfortunately. Super clearly, enunciating, slowly. With a smile.

I've got a TOEFL class who are oh, delightful. They all contracted different amounts of hours, between 36 and 48, and they're all peeling off to take the test one by one. We've set a date for a "Fiesta de No More TOEFL" (Spanglish is funny in two languages).

This class--they blew my mind today. We spend the class speaking English, they're all people I know. Jaya who works with kids and wants to study abroad in the UK; hipster artist who wants to go to Berlin; extrovert in eyeliner who spends more on clubs than I earn; sugarface geek...and then today I mentioned how everyone here tries to teach me to clap Flamenco-style, and they all break out! And suddenly everyone's Spanish, olé, and where is the wine and when will the women stand up and dance? "It's in our blood," they laugh. And class ends and they just can't speak English anymore, even the eager ones who stay behind and practice on me. We'll dance flamenco at the Fiesta de No More TOEFL! We'll eat tortilla española! They say.