When our teacher in Character Formation took a leave of absence, Ms. Dimaculangan was hired as a substitute. Actually, she is good. She has mastery of the subject, is fun to be with, very energetic, and never boring. She could have been a great teacher… except for one thing.

“Good morning, class! Let’s begin right away. What do we have for today? Hhhmmm! Aha… you have an assignment. I told you to find some quotations related to INTEGRITY. You will be called one by one in front. You will recite the quotation, recognize the author… then after that… what do you do… EXXPPLAINN. Is that clear? Hhhmmm…. What? Are you asking why you need to acknowledge the author? To avoid PLAGIARISM (mispronounced)….”

“Excuse me!” That’s me, raising my hand before she could go any further. “Ma’am, it’s plagiarism.”

“Ah — pla-gee-a-rism. Okay, sorry. I’m only human.”

“Now, let’s have first… Ku-LAAS-sa. Stand up, Kulasa. Begin! Acknowledge the author first — to avoid plagiarism.”

“Ma’am, my quotation was from… from…”

“From who, Kulasa? Why can’t you say it?”

“From Fran… Francois (mispronounced)?”

“What? Say that again. Spell it.”

“F-R-A-N-C-O-I-S.”

“Ha, ha, ha… That’s Francois (mispronounced also)… my Gosh…”

I smiled again and had to tell Ma’am that it’s Francois. Ahh, that’s my role in her class. To watch out for her pronunciation and grammar. Glad that she would never take offense whenever I correct her.

“Hhhmmm! Kulasssaa! According to the expert, that’s Francois.”

“Okay, Ma’am. You really are very good.”

“Don’t say that anymore, Kulasa… I know that already… But thanks anyway.”

“My quotation is from Francois Demetry. It reads… “Prosperity achieved by losing integrity is shameful.

Ah, Ma’am… Did I read all the words properly? You are my idol in pronunciation and grammar. I mean… you know.”

“Kulasa, are you insinuation something.”

“Then I said.. Ahh, Ma’am shouldn’t that be insinuating?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean — are you insinuating something?”

“No, Ma’am. I’m only telling the truth. You really are my idol! Ma’am, do I still need to explain the—”

“Not anymore. It’s self-ex-pla-NA-tion.”

The class had a good laugh.

Then Kulasa blurted… “Correction, Ma’am, that’s not “self-explanation…” but “self-explanatory.”

In the middle of my classmates’ laughter, I caught the look on Ms. Dimaculangan’s face. Delighted. Too delighted. And that’s when I started to suspect something. It seemed like she was committing all those boo-boos in pronunciation and grammar on purpose.

Then that night, I happened to catch a public service show on TV. I could not be mistaken — one of the resource persons was Ms. Dimaculangan. I nearly fell off my seat when I heard our substitute teacher deliver perfect English, in a distinct British accent, with impeccable grammar, pronunciation, and enunciation. It was a completely different Ms. Dimaculangan.

I was right about my suspicion. She had been committing those grammatical slips and mispronunciations on purpose — the whole time. Probably to get a laugh, to keep our attention. And it worked. We enjoyed her. And despite — or maybe because of — her “intentional” bad grammar and pronunciation, we learned a lot from her. I remember there were times when I wasn’t in the mood to correct her, and she’d catch her own mistake before I even opened my mouth.

I decided not to tell my classmates what I’d discovered.

After her last day with our class, I approached her. “Ma’am, I saw you on TV one night.”

“My gosh, Abelgas — you saw me in the boob-TUBB?”

“Ma’am — it’s boob-TOOB.”

She just smiled. And gave me a wink.