All Y'All...and my American Accent

“All y’all need to settle down right now!” I announce across the buzzing classroom as I waltz back in from the staff room during the kids’ first recess.  The room goes silent.  All my grade sixers turn to stare at me.  A burst of gut wrenching laughter erupts throughout the classroom.  “Well, that was ineffective,” I think to myself. 

This is the third or fourth time I’ve accidentally slipped an American-ism into conversation with my class.  The first time I looked like a deer in headlights, shocked with confusion as to why my students were rumbling with laughter when I was trying to effectively implement good classroom management. 

My American-isms and accent are apparently very entertaining.  Prior to the afore mentioned incident, one of my students whose mom works at the school went home to share how “American” I sounded during class a few days ago.  He couldn’t remember what American word I had said during class, just that was hysterically funny and that I blushed ten shades of red when the class completely involuntarily laughed out loud at me.  (On a side note, blushing is something I have taken to doing regularly now.  It’s not a very good habit to have picked up.) When asked what it was I had said by the parent/teacher the next day in the staff room I had no idea.  The conversation moved on and I sipped my cup of coffee.  Someone made a comment about something Australian related and I piped up saying, “All y’all give Americans a tough wrap about being loud and obnoxious, but y’all are no better,” or something to that effect.  The same burst of laughter erupted through the staff room and I figured out exactly what I had said.  My friends from the northeast would have ribbed me had they heard me – I sounded very nearly southern born and bred.  Hanging out with all those southern boys has definitely effected my accent and speech pattern.

When I was going to be told by friends and family back home that I sounded Australian (it’s almost like living in Australia with the sheer numbers of Aussies here) had been a topic of conversation shortly after my arrival.  I’m not sure I sound Australian (when I’m not sounding as American as the cowboys in the old westerns according to my students), but I catch myself sounding “funny” to myself already.  My pattern of speech sometimes sounds odd to me.  I find myself pausing differently and placing the inflections on different syllables than I normally would in certain words.  Really listening to the way you sound as you speak is odd to begin with, but when people are having conversations about your word choice, intonation, and accent, it’s something you start to do.  I find that I just start sounding less and less like myself when I tune into the accent or sound of my own voice.

I have definitely picked up some different lingo already.  When talking about the lock situation at my house a few weeks back I told a friend back home they were buggered – definitely not American speak.  I find myself saying, “Oh, it’s all been sorted,” when asked if a situation has been figured out.  I use canteen instead of cafeteria now.  I had tea the other day instead of breakfast at the Crowne Plaza.  I’ve thrown a few “eh’s” on to the end of sentences here and there.  “Give it a go” has replaced “at least give it a shot” or “do you want to try”.  I have purposefully removed “I was pissed,” from my vocabulary as it means drunk here and I adamantly refuse to replace “flip flops” with “thongs” when speaking at all times.

I have taken to slipping “y’all” into my speech on purpose just to get a rise out my class.  Some of them attempt to use it in their speech to be silly and a few even try to throw an American accent (whatever that is?!) around now and then as well.  It’s all in good fun; just like when I use a mock Australian/English accent – I am terrible at differentiating between these as most expats I encounter seem to have a muddled version of the two now.  There is no denying who is from New Zealand though – they are the only people I’ve met who are capable of speaking faster than Americans.  When the two teachers from New Zealand get on a roll together, I have a difficult time understanding.

If I’ve already noticed some change in my own speech, I wonder what everyone back home will think after I’ve been here for eight months and return home at Christmas?