Alan Maley has been involved in ELT for over 40 years. He has lived and worked in 10 countries, including China, India, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. He is series editor for the Oxford Resource Books for Teachers, and has published over 30 books and numerous articles. E-mail: yelamuk@yahoo.co.uk

 

Playing with Words

Assonance, alliteration –

Hear the beat, the syncopation.

Listen to the rhythm,

One two three –

Out of their prison

Letting words free.

And while they’re busy keeping time,

You slip in cunning bits of rhyme.

Keep it simple, keep it clear.

Folks will love it, have no fear!

The words are having so much fun,

I think I’ll write another one!

 

Teacher angst

We do not know what’s coming next.

We’re on the stage without a text.

We know we have to act a part

Yet have no notion where to start.

The other actors know their lines –

We stumble on with grunts and signs.

We’re locked away inside our heads

While others strut their lines instead.

There is no hope for folks like us.

We’re left behind; we’ve missed the bus.

 

 

For Miss Marsh. 1943

A village school in time of war –

More women teachers there than men,

When, like our Dads, male teachers are away,

And stay away two more long years.

 

Our teacher, a young girl straight from college,

Her knowledge fresh but lightly worn –

Born to be a teacher in this school

Where rule was mostly chaos.

 

I still see her face

Through a haze of chalk dust,

Just as she was then.  Like Edward Lear,

Her hair an extravagant fizz caught by sunlight –

Delight in her eyes as she opens the book –

The hook that she will catch us with.

 

Chaos resolves to order with her voice:

Boys and girls rapt.  As she turns the pages,

Ages of a time of myth unfold –

Dwarves, goblins, orcs and other strange creatures

Feature there, brought alive by the magic

Trick of her presence.

 

Now, recollecting in the tranquillity of age,

The page of memory turns, and suddenly

I realize as I’m thinking of it –

The book she’d read us was – The Hobbit!