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White_Elephant · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 175

After repeatedly explaining about greetings and appropriate replies to those greetings, there is a spoken exam where I choose a greeting and the student responds based on handouts. This student obviously just did not understand:

Teacher: "So, what's shaking?"
Student: "I'm not shaking" [she has a very serious look on her face]

There is a homework assignment where the students must write about where they are from. Here the student did not understand the assignment:

Student writes, "I live in idleness."
Teacher says, "Do you mean you are bored?"
Student, "yes, uh huh" [student is very excited now]

Sometimes it's hard not to laugh. So let's hear about your hilarious moments teaching ESL.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Never mind students. My old boss used to have a few dinner parties a year for the staff and management at his house. As everyone left his house he would shake your hand and say 'thank you for your come' the man, even after 15-20 years is still famous for this line in Istanbul. Just ask thrifty. Speaking of which. Where has Henry's best friend disappeared to?

guangho · Joined: 16 Oct 2004 Posts: 476 Location: in transit

Thrifty is enjoying the enriching world of EFL. I am teaching Academic Writing which yields such awesome insights as:

"Oranges are oftentimes orange in colour."
"I have been writing about beautiful and nobleness sport, badminton."
"America is very powerful and men who are not powerful and want to not be America are called terrorists."
"Prostitution should be legalized because many woman want to do prostitute."

I have many more....research papers are due tomorrow!

thelmadatter · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:00 pm Post subject: expose

False cognates between English and Spanish can cause doozies.

"Teacher, I can I expose on Friday instead of Thursday?" (meaning "do a presentation)

"I have to compromise myself with _____" (meaning make a promise to do something)

Will. · Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 783 Location: London Uk

Good morning teacher!!!!

( WHO ME?)

and I think to myself...
If you only knew what exactly it is your parent's are paying for...

hlamb · Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Posts: 431 Location: Canada

I wash the dishes in the chicken.
I ate kitchen last night.
I am going to applicate myself.
I went to the bitch last weekend and it was very hot there. (meaning beach but with poor pronunciation)
I slept with my mother last night (meaning at my mother's house)

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Jizzo T. Clown · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:16 pm Post subject:

A student once misused a preposition:

"Come in the umbrella or you will get wet."

jonniboy · Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 11:15 pm Post subject: Re: expose

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

Here in Japan peanutbutter is pronounced "peanus cream".

Jetgirly · Joined: 17 Jul 2004 Posts: 741

During a lesson on the present perfect a student said to me, "You have been a very, very bad girl." For a minute I thought he was going to spank me.

I also thought it was very sweet when a student said to me, "You lost the heavy!" (after I lost thirty pounds in two months on a detox)

Although I'm sure I've accidentally said much worse things when trying to speak any language other than English!

Gordon · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 5309 Location: Japan

A young teenage boy once wrote: "I like to sip my cock". I think he meant COKE. When I got him to look the word up in his dictionary, he turned a shade of red, I have never seen before nor since and he repeated "Coke, Coke".

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

White_Elephant · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 175

MELEE · Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 3:18 pm Post subject:

It was a speaking exam on the last day before Christmas vacation, I was the assessor, the interlocotor was one of those guys who at first comes across as totally serious, then you discover his dry sense of humor. We were about half way through what seemed like hundreds of exams, low intermediate level. He asks the student. "What are you doing for vacation?" the student says, as clear as a bell, "I'm peeing." The assessor made the mistake of looking at me. I'm racking my mind trying to think of what it was the student ment to say, playing?, seeing?, Confused

He's smirking, and I start shaking, trying to hold in the laugh. It's not the funniest thing, but any other oral examiner knows how you get slap happy after hearing the same thing over and over and over again. Maybe the student new that too. The laughed about it between exams the rest of the day.