Job Discussion Forums

[dmb]

I bumped into an old student last night-from about 4 years ago. He started talking about old classmates and one particular lesson. What I call the F*** lesson. A bit of background. I`had been teaching the class for about 6 months four times a week. There were ten lads in the class all in their 20s and we had a good rapport talking about laddish things- football and women. Anyway one day I decided to do a vocab lesson around the word F*** and various idioms and phrasal verbs containing it. Obviously they had all heard the word before but they couldn't use it. What do reckon. What is your opinion of swearing in the classroom. I think swearing is an integral part of language and if the students want to learn it we should teach it.

[dmb]

When you say religion, what do you mean? Do you mean things like 'oh my God'? If so is that really swearing. Dave doesn't beep it.

[dmb]

Doesn't Dave supercede Swan

[dmb]

The last post was courtesy of the one and only Entrailicus

[justme]

I think swearing is integral to English. Perhaps it isn't neccessary for them to produce it, but if they want to understand us in everyday conversation, they need to know the patterns of swearing in our speech (like you can say abso--f**ing--lutely but not ab--f**ing--solutely) and what the words mean (like b*tch in English has more of a meaning of shrewish woman than wh*re). In America I had the pleasure of teaching a 'American Slang and Swearing' elective to pre-MA Japanese and Koreans, and it was hilarious. There's nothing like a timid Japanese girl raising her hand to offer 'I gotta git with my homies and score some f***in' scrill before I get down and nasty with my boo.'

Also, the more comfortable I get with my students, the harder it is for me not to swear. I say 'Jesus Christ' a lot in class when I'm mad and frustrated, and I can't find a really good alternative to bullsh*t that means both sa�ma and 'you're trying to tell me a really stupid lie about why you didn't do your homework' or 'you're trying to act smart to seem better than you are'... Proud to say most my students could use bullsh*t properly in a variety of contexts by the end of the year, though I had a hard time trying to make them stop using it in their papers...

[dmb]

I think that is one of the problems with swear words. Once they learn them they tend to overuse them. It's a bit like elem. students when they come across the present perfect for the first time. The simple past goes out the window.(or is that just my students?)

[justme]

Nope, they all do that, especially when they're nervous. Maybe they think it's like an extra-super nice for formal situations tense. It's like when every personal pronoun becomes 'she' and 'her' when they're nervous. How about teaching passive in pre-int, and simple past becomes 'was go' and 'was went'?

[Baba Alex]

[dmb]

[justme]

I had to make a ban on bigotry during a unit about conspiracy theories, and they wouldn't shut up about the Jewish Conspiracy in 9/11...

Some students were visibly surprised when I told them Jews are just normal people who don't have tails or horns...