Betty's presentation over, I ask her some questions about her home town, her hobbies, her dream job... the prescribed topics of conversation we'd been over in class... and she answers excitedly, a bit louder than I find comfortable, and in fluid - if not grammatically correct - English.
Betty's exam over, she thanks me and Jamie, one of the girls from our Office who is sitting in on my exams today, for our time and leaves.
I turned to Jamie. "I have never seen that girl before in my life."
I couldn't quite put my finger on why I was so certain. I began to doubt myself - Betty's in a large class of 44 and I can't put a name to every face, but I felt sure I knew all the faces. And then, like something borrowed from an encyclopaedia of annoying narrative devices, it hit me.
"I'm not her teacher - she has an American accent."
Plus she hadn't understood the presentation instructions properly, which someone with her level of English would have, and somebody so enthusiastic (read loud) couldn't have hid for three months in one of my classes.
"She's a fake-Betty." Jamie was on the case. She called the student councillor who called (real)Betty who protested her innocence, only to be told 'Don't tell us, go to the Foreign Teachers' Office and explain to Ed that he's mistaken'. So (real) Betty - fake-Betty has fled the scene - goes along to the office but I'm not there. She starts to explain t the staff that I must've made a mistake, it's a big class and lots of... yep, you've guessed it... she's explaining it to Jamie, who recognises that it's a different girl, and her partner-in-crime, fake-Betty, never mentioned that there was a Chinese observer there too.
Busted. Jamie gives her the third degree and - to cut a longer story short - advises her that a customary small gift for the teacher might be appropriate. I'm not concerned about the cheating - the school can deal with that, but am a bit annoyed that she thought I wouldn't notice the switch. So I've now got a lovely five-piece tea set from a student whose English is probably good enough to have passed anyway.
She'll resit (or sit for the first time, rather) the exam next semester and hopefully will have told her friends that it's less hassle to just ask me for help in the first place!
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