TALK TO THEM.(dream dates desired by non-native English speakers)

In the new Pedro Almodovar film, "Talk to Her," the thirty-five-year-old Spanish actor Javier Camara plays Benigno, a male nurse who takes care of a young dancer in a coma, talking to her constantly in Spanish. But in the intermediate-English class that Ben Polk teaches at the Embassy Center for English Studies, in Chelsea, which meets five days a week for four hours a day, Javier Camara plays Javier, an ardent young man from Madrid, who has decided to stay in New York for six weeks in order to learn English.

Javier's classmates know that he is famous in Spain and that he was the star of the popular sitcom "Seven Lives," because he talks about it so often in class. They also know about "Talk to Her," because he invited all of them to see it with him on the day it opened. This has not stopped them from laughing at his occasional outbursts, or from calling him Belly, because of his slight paunch.

On a recent Friday, the class was discussing the topics of love, marriage, and dating. "Today, we're dealing with a lot of idioms," Ben Polk, who is twenty-three, told his students. "Can you tell me about your first date?"

"I played trumpet," Tomoko, a young woman from Japan, said. "My school's band is only girls. We played with only boys' school band. He played trumpet, too."

"Oh! He played trumpet, too!" Javier said, loudly. The class erupted in laughter. Tomoko blushed, but continued, "We went to McDonald's. I was nervous. We promised to meet second time outside of school."

During a break, Javier chatted with his classmates about what it's like to be famous. "This city makes me feel normal, normal like you," he told them. "Here I feel free. I love to look at people. Last night, I saw ...