A Recurring Nightmare

I am late for class or I come to class woefully unprepared. Worse, I don't turn up for the class at all, not just once but throughout the entire school year. In this last case, dream is rooted in reality. In those far-off days before the energy crisis of 1973, adult education in general, and language learning in particular, was treated as something of a joke, an excuse for a bit of free time provided that teacher and class could come to an "understanding". This is precisely what happened to me in 1970 when, as a young EFL teacher in Lyon, I ventured out to a factory on the road to Geneva, secure in the knowledge that none of my class would turn up.

But no-one educated by the Jesuits can ever hope to escape a feeling of guilt, and so it is that even  though I gave my last EFL lesson over 20 years ago, these dreams still occur with great regularity.