Selective hearing

I have to laugh! :) Teenagers and their selective hearing! Today in one of my classes, a student was searching for a particular word. Another was helping them, and when they found it, they started to spell outloud: " V-E-R-F-U,'Umlaut'-H".....at which point another student 2 rows over, piped in in with "Who's 'Umlaut', and what did they do to you to deserve that?" At least I know their hearing works, if only selectively.

This is not the only crazy statement I have had from students. Late in the school year last Spring, I had one of my seniors feeling kind of uncooperative. She was generally a good student (at least for me), but I think senioritis had struck. We were getting ready to do a verbal practice, and she stated very matter-of-factly: "Herr Wahlquist, I can't do this exercise, I don't speak verbally".

On another occasion, I had a student working on a vocabulary and short phrase worksheet. He was getting somewhat frustrated, and commented, more to the air than to anyone in particular: "Man, this would be so much easier if I spoke German!" :) :)