Losing battle

English is not fighting a losing battle
I am

You’ll have to hear this to know
What it is like to live and teach

Non-English-never-want-to-be-English
Learners

One pronouncing ‘modern’ as if it were ‘more than’
Another treating ‘on behalf’ as ‘on behave’

A third pronouncing ‘character’ like it’s ‘cha racter’, ‘cha’ for ‘chapter’
And a fourth, doing ‘debut’ as a ‘de But’

As for ‘Paras’ for Paris
‘Lose weight’ for lose wight

(I admit the last sounds
quite Strine, without me teaching them)

There are so much more
That I have to stop citing, without tiring me out

And I am learning, too
When a student flattened ‘opposite’ as ‘oppo site’

It’s not till then that I realized
I was fighting, tongue down, an absolute losing battle