The Speckled Band: Or Learning English with Sherlock Holmes

By Alice Lapuerta
Originally appeared at the Bilingual/Bicultural Family Network in July 2006
Photo credit: Alterego

“It was the band! The speckled band!!!” my mother read with dramatic intonation. My brothers and I huddled against her. I didn’t understand a word she said, but fidgeted around with excitement nevertheless.

“Was ist das, ‘speckled band’?” we interrupted immediately.

“Das ist, ein Moment,” my mother paused as she looked it up in a German-English dictionary, “ein fleckiges Band.” We debated for a while of what on earth that could be. A belt? A rope? Something with a weird pattern on it? Very mysterious indeed.

My mom closed the book. “Enough for tonight! Tomorrow we’ll read the next chapter.” We went to bed, protesting.

This is how I learned English: through schooling and my mother’s late-night readings of Conan Doyle. I had my first English class in 4th grade but was disinterested and lost. Maybe this is what prompted my mother to give us these Sherlock Holmes extra-help sessions at home.

Our English teacher was one of a kind. She rapped her ruler on her desk and growled fiercely: “If I hear another one of you pronounce the word “but” as “buhtt” instead of “baht,” then something terrible will happen!”

My turn to read out loud: “Ann went to School. Buhtt – “ Oh no. I waited apprehensively for the terrible thing to happen, but I was saved by the bell. Literally.

I decided that I didn’t like English class very much. At home, however, it was a different matter altogether. There my mother enticed us with The Speckled Band and The Hound of Baskervilles. This is where I learned how to correctly pronounce “but.”

I also learned other beautiful English words such as “the speckled band,” “dark and sinister business,” “investigating a case,” and “looking at it with a convex lens”. This was a lot more interesting than learning about Ann and Pat going to school. Ultimately, who cares about those dull kids when you have Sherlock teach you English instead?

Unfortunately, my English teacher insisted that Ann and Pat were more important than Sherlock. So I kept bringing home 4s (Ds) in English.

This continued for a while; then my parents, wisely realizing that this had nothing to do with my inability to learn English but more with poor pedagogy, sent me into an English-speaking school.

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