Chalk and cheese?

Aeroplane? Realise? Colour? Pleasure craft? Talk round? Spelt??

Uhhh what the #$%@?!?!

So I have a new student, Rafael, who is (sidebar) fantastically smart and funny especially considering he is only 18 years old. I am preparing him to take the IELTS (like the TOEFL, but for British universities) so he can apply to colleges in England.

In class on Monday, I was looking through an IELTS practice book while Rafael did a reading exercise, and I noticed a somewhat disturbing trend. I couldn't answer half the questions in the book correctly.

For example: Complete the following sentence with the correct phrase.

John and Mary are complete opposites; they're like _______________

a) cats and dogs
b) chalk and cheese
c) salt and pepper

Umm... cats and dogs maybe? Not that I've ever heard/said anything like that. I checked the answer in the back of the book and it was b) chalk and cheese

Another example asked for a phrasal verb that means to convince. Talk into? Nope. Talk round.

Another activity asked the students to identify words that were spelt incorrectly. Yes, spelt. Hmm, I thought, they must be really getting into the activity if they are misspelling the instructions as well.

Well, duh. The whole book and the whole test in fact are in British English, the Queen's English, something that before you become an English teacher you think means a small handful of different words and expressions...

But once you start teaching English you realize it's like a different language. One that you are expected to teach as though you speak it fluently. This poor kid is stuck with me prepping him for the IELTS and I'm giggling at the word "pleasure craft" in a listening exercise.

C'est la vie. Thank God for the answer book. And cheers to England, even though I don't speak their crazy language, it's a lovely country with many fine things to offer the world.

UPDATE: Rafael & I were both very relieved to find out today that students are not penalized (or penalised, in British) for American spelling of words on the IELTS. He also thought chalk and cheese was a pretty silly expression.