I work as an English teacher for a foreign language centre here in Poznań. Oh, the joy of having a rewarding job, the glorious possibility of observing your students take their first steps on the yet unknown ground of a foreign language, the heartwarming thrill when they make progress... Yet sometimes, I can't help being glad that it's only a part time job. Consider this:

Mrs O. is in her early fourties (I guess) and has just started learning English. At the beginning she seemed uncertain about her ability to catch the intricacies of the language, but remembered the material from the first class quite well. Greatly motivated, I set about injecting her with some more knowledge... and by the middle of the class I silently prayed for her not to hear me grinding my teeth.

The exercise was about the names of some of the easier-to-locate countries. There was a box with the names (the USA, Brazil, Russia, China, Egypt, Germany... for non-Polish readers: more than three quarters of them are very similar to their Polish equivalents, especially when written) and below it there was a map of the world, on which the countries were marked with numbers and different colours, the better to spot them. (The rest of the map was uniform gray.)
About 15 minutes passed before the lady managed to identify the twelve countries. Then I decided to quickly revise and made her attribute names to given numbers. The conversation went as follows (in Polish!!):

n.: *in English* So, what country is number 5? [let's say it was Turkey]
Mrs O.: Hm... hmmm... Well, I dunno... Mexico?
n.: o_o' Nnnno, Mexico's in North America?
Mrs O.: Sooo... Maybe China?
n.: *tries to assume a professional smile* China's a little bit deeper in Asia. We're at the Mediterranean.
Mrs O.: It's hard, you know... Egypt, maybe?
n.: *incredulous* *faintly* Egypt's in Africa...

...and it went on like that! Honestly! You'd think I told her to solve some quantum physics problem... The best/worst part was when she looked for Australia somewhere between Greenland and Sweden, despite the fact that both of them were gray.

_{(All that with me constantly being growled, huffed, puffed and farted at by her sleeping boxer.)}

I must admit, I'm glad that Mrs O.'s workplace signed her up for a free English course and I'll have to teach her only till the end of October. Let someone else deal with her ignorance. Really, I'd rather give up the money than develop a deep frustration - NOT because the student is not quick on apprehension, but because she's lacking basic everyday knowledge... I went home wondering what the TV news must be like to people like her - people who can't even approximately tell in which world part to expect a country...

"Today, in Timbuktu, the picturesque capital of the Czech Republic, overlooking the cold arctic waters of the Panama Canal, a representation of neighbouring Australia paid homage to the country's national hero Ferdinand Magellan, by laying flowers at the feet of his monument, newly erected on the Red Square, right in front of the gates of the Forbidden City."

Yeah, something like that I guess, or even more confusing.