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[Golightly]

One of my (female) teachers trying to say 'I'm bored' in Turkish in a class full of 15-year-old boys - unfortunately, she used the dotted 'i' rather than the undotted one, to hilarious effect...

[yaramaz]

I was teaching a business class-something about banking- and the word mortgage came up and several of my solemn suits started tittering. Apparently mortgage sounds just like mor kı�. Purple bum. Whups!

[howmucharefags]

I spilled my vodka and coke in class. It was cunningly disguised in a diet coke bottle but I couldn't disguise the smell of the spillage.

[dmb]

Lucky students don't recognise the smell of Buckie.

[thrifty]

[howmucharefags]

I stole it from my wife's handbag.

[howmucharefags]

She is a TEFLer

[Freddie Miles]

I have so many stories like that but I suppose my all-time winner was this.
It was my first year and I had very limited resources at this private course. And I got hold of this exercise--- teaching -ish, to make the adjective slightly less specific or exact. (Ok admittedly lame, but I DID say I had limited resources)
In any case, photocopied the pages and handed them out and almost at the beginning, I recall a certain unsettling in the class, the fluttering of papers and whispering. But then, as a new teacher, I didn't quite pick up on anything unusual.

Anyway, so after an explanation and such, we move on to the exercises.

1. Jason is 45 but he looks__________. ( young)
Youngish. Bravo!
2. I dont have a watch, but it is _____________( twelve)
Twelve-ish ..Right oh!
Then came number 3.
3. Fiona isn't at work today. She said she was feeling _________ ( sick)

At this point, the male students were all elbowing one another and the female students were turning either pale or red. When called upon, the student simply refused to say it.

Of course, I battled my way through it, pulling out the authority card and practically demanded she say it. She finally said.. "Okay, but please close the door first." HUH??

So somehow we got through it and later that evening, I was discussing the strange events with my Turkish friends after class. And to my surprise, they too started acting quite strange, laughing and whispering and laughing again.

Finally I learned that "sickish" has a completely different meaning in Turkish. I wont try to explain here, all of you non-turkish speakers will have to learn for yourselves, but, suffice to say, it is not the kind of the thing your average Turkish student of English would expect to hear in a classroom.

[Golightly]

another colleague had difficulty remembering one of his new student's names - not that it was particularly difficult; Her name was Yaprak. Unfortunately he continually addressed her as 'Yarrak'....

[Freddie Miles]

Ah yes, names.
Well, I am not good with names in English but in Turkish I have had plenty of disasters. One time I spent the whole term calling a rather shy girl, whose name was Dilek, Delik which means "hole".
I suppose she was too shy or polite to correct me.

[FGT]

[Freddie Miles]

This story stretches the parameters and it didnt happen to me, but to a friend of mine. Anyway, here goes.
The teacher of a elementary class or pre-intermediate level opens the topic of films. And she asks the students which kinds of film they enjoy. The standard answers are given until she reaches one student who proudly says: "I like creamy films"

A moment of obvious bewilderment follows. She hesitates, thinking should I ask or just leave it. In the end, she decided to move on. Later, she learned that student was trying to say "Crime films".

[Golightly]

A female newbie arrived and was settling into her routine, but wanted a bit of reassurance that she was doing the right thing and asked one of my colleagues to come in and observe her class, give her tips etc. This he did, and found everything to be fine, but he advised her to crouch down in front of students instead of standing over them, in order to be less authoritarian, meaning she should get down to their eye contact level whenever they were engaged in an activity. Unfortunately, she somewhat mistook his meaning. The next lesson, she waited until all the class had arrived, then, in silence, walked out into the middle of the class, and crouched down in front of everyone. However, she lost her balance, and slowly toppled backwards, finishing up sprawled on the floor. Still in silence, she got up, walked back behind her desk, and then said, 'right, page 93...'
What was funny was the fact that she told the whole staffroom afterwards.

[Freddie Miles]

They give that advice in International House Teacher Training I hear. I saw it in practice once. I was observing a lesson of a friend of mine who had just finished her training course and this was her first class.
The first thing that threw her was a question from one of the students in the "let's get to know each other" part. First couple of questions were fairly standard but then one student asked her what her job was.
"I am a teacher." she answered slowly.
With absolutely no ill intent, the student said. "What subject? Maths?"
She actually winced and through her gritted teeth said, "No... English".

So off to the reading we went and that was rough going indeed. Her hands began to shake and I was starting to get concerned. At that point, she remembered the advice you mentioned in your previous post. However, she had forgotten that she was wearing a low cut sweater and she was rather a full chested woman in any case. ( Also she was flushing around that area!) Down on one knee she went with the paper in her hand, continuing to read aloud to the now-perplexed students. They had never seen me do anything like that! I suppose they thought she had dropped something.

From my vantage point in the classroom, I could see the man directly in front of her. Let's call him Fikret (because that was his name). Fikret normally sat in that poor posture position common to our students, legs spread and very low in the chair. However, upon this occasion, I watched his eyes light up and gradually he levitated higher and higher in his chair. Certainly his attention seemed fixed upon the teacher, I noticed but I doubt whether he heard a word of what she was saying.

After the lesson, I asked the new teacher how she thought the lesson went and all I got in return was a spiteful glare.

[Sally Vaite]

Somebody ought to collect these stories together and write a book! Speaking of which, has anybody else here been contacted by a fellow named Caleb Powell?