Fandom High School

"//We'll be watching El Cantante again today,//" El told his students. "//On your way out, pick up a take home exam. It shouldn't take you longer than two hours, and covers vocab and all the verb tenses we've been learning. I'll be in my office all afternoon on Friday for you to drop it off.//"

"//It's been a rather eventful weekend, I realize,//" El said to his students as they took their seats. "//So no studying, just a little practice. Let's all talk about what we did over this weekend, in Spanish. For myself, I fought off a few trolls at the church on Saturday, and helped in the big distraction strike at the manor the day afteward. Yourselves?//"

"//I realize that we are several days before a vacation,//" El said. "//Not being American, I was unaware of this holiday at the time. Since I know that I have no chance at all of getting your attention to study or do exercises, we'll take a break today and watch some Spanish-language TV.//"

El picked up the remote, flicked it to a Spanish language soap opera, and settled back in his seat.

"Buenos Dias, clase," El said as his students entered. "//I hope you all had a good break from me. I have your test scores here,//" he said, tapping the papers on his desk. "//And vocabulary sheets for you here. Today we're going to talk about what we did on our vacations, even if it was just sit around. In Spanish of course. I'll go first.//"

As the students entered the classroom, they might notice El with his head on the desk, possibly sleeping. If they tried to leave early, they would learn the hard way that he wasn't.

He had a bandage around one of his arms.

Next to El's theoretically sleeping head, there was a small sign. It read:

"Quietly practice vocabulary amongst yourselves. Will be quiz on it next week. Don't try to leave, I will know."

There was a stack of vocabulary sheets next to El's sign.

"I would like to apologize for last week," El Mariachi said as the students filed in. "But I'm afraid that a... personal matter kept me from class. I promise it won't happen again. Hopefully you all studied your vocabulary while I was away. It was mostly common Spanish nouns and adjectives most often used in conversation and the basics of grammer."

"//Today we'll be talking about the past tense, an important tense to be sure, but one with a lot of irregular forms to trip you up.//"

He delivered a lecture on past tense verbs.

"//Now, just like last time,//" El said. "//We'll learn through song//"

He suddenly dove down and pulled out his black guitar.

"The past tense is quit simple, and need for most written work.
It says where you've gone, it says where you've been, and it has a very a lot of perks.
hablé, viví, comí, hablaste, viviste, comiste, habló, vivió, vivió, hablamos, vivimos, comimos, hablasteis, vivisteis, comisteis, hablaron, vivieron, comieron.

To live, to eat, to live.
That is the waaaay of life!"


It was kind of slow and melodic. And very old skool Mariachi.

As the students entered the class room, they were greated with the smell of breakfast tacos from Cafe Fina.

Because you can take El out of Mexico, but you can't take Mexico out of El.


"Buenos dias, mis estudiantes," El said once they had all arrived. "En Mexico, me llaman El Mariachi, pero tu me llamares "Professor"."

He stretched his neck.

"Or, in English. Good morning, my students. In Mexico, they call me El Mariachi, but you will call me Professor."

He walked around his desk and started handing out syllabi. "Get used to talking in Spanish," El said. "Because we'll be doing a lot of it. You learn another language by being immersed in it and that's what I intend to do to all of you. With this syllabus is a basic vocabulary sheet. I'd like you to start working on it immediately. Also, get yourself a good Spanish-to-English dictionary and a book entitled 501 Spanish Verbs. They should be available at the book store in town."

He stopped and turned to face the class. "Well, let's start with a little introduction, and then I'll let you all go early. Your name, where you are from, why you're taking this class, and something interesting about yourself. I'll start. I've already told you who I am. I'm taking this class because I'm the teacher. I'm from a small town in Mexico and I am an avid guitar player. Anyone else?