Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

Italians, like many other nationalities, tend to pronounce "coke" like "cok". Hence, "I like coke" can become unwittingly amusing. "Beach" often comes out like "bich"; "I love lying on beaches" (har de har har). Hence

"I was lying on a beach, when I thought - 'What I need is a coke!'"

said with an Italian accent could keep me amused for hours, because I'm childish like that . Anyway...

I had a class of predominantly Italian Pre-Ints, and the whole coke/cok thing came up (ahem). As politely as possible I explained the meaning of what a "cok" is, and demonstrated how the dipthong in "coke" is an important part of English phonology. At the end, I started drilling 'dangerous' sentences to hammer the point home;

"I love coke"
"Where can I get a coke around here?"
"I'll have a large coke please"

etc...

It was at this point that (let's call her...) Stefania piped up "Teacher! I like coke and cok!" to the amusement and applause of 7 other roudy Italians (and to the bafflement of a Japanese guy). I laughed, at the time it was pretty funny. The whole episode got me to thinking - how far can we go with sexual reference in the classroom?

My students are all adults in their late-teens, early twenties (and I am 24). I'd assume that most of them are sexually active, yet sex is rarely an issue that gets covered to any great extent in the classroom.

When sex does see the light of day, it is usually because an adventurous student wants to test my reaction, or make a joke:

T: So the man sees the woman (gesturing to picture on board). What does he think?
S: I want to *beep* her!
TSS: (laugh)

I suppose this is how it should be - I'd feel uncomfortable walking into a class on a Monday morning and starting out with "Tell your partner about your last sexual experience..." But on the other hand, sex is an inescapable part of human life - and vast quantities of phrasal verbs, colloquial English and double-entendres exist which students should know. I imagine the philosophy most teachers (and, indeed, myself) have is "sod it, they have the internet, they can figure it out for themselves - but if I'm asked a direct question I will answer it."

Maybe I'm wrong though. How close do/can you get to the whole sex issue in the classroom?

[lajzar]

That reminds me of one of my male Japanese students telling me all about the spam that he spilt over his pants. I quietly corrected his pronunciation and then carried on supervising the main activity.

[desultude]

In Korea you can't go far with the sexual references- even the university students are often extremely naive and shy about sexual matters.

The other night my students were joking about how we westerners always mispronounce the name Seok (sounds like suck, but we mispronounce it as sook). The problem for the students is that "seok" (suck) is a male name, and "sook" is a female name. I tried, cautiously, to explain how suck has other conotations in English, so we are hesitant when pronouncing it, especially when the name is something like "Hung Seok" (suck). I stopped trying to explain the issue with names (there are many others that would make my mother blush). I could only be broad and euphemistic with my explanation, and it was still a problem.

It would be fun, at those times, to have Italian students. But it is necessary to respect local sensibilities.

[PAULH]

[shenyanggerry]

I had to explain to a student (female - China) why "I want to eat you" was not appropriate to use as a charade.

[ls650]

Not a good idea.

Oh, sorry; I thought the thread title was a question.

[Glenski]

Sister of a Japanese student of mine had lived in Texas for about 6 months before she wrote a letter home. My student had already had a lesson in pronunciation problems with R and L. She cracked up and showed me the letter which read, in part:

"I'm looking forward to watching the Presidential erections."

Side note:
This was the Clinton era.

[Seth]

this wasn't in the classroom, but apparently in scotland 'pants' is what those of us in the US would call 'underwear.' so whenever i said something like 'i need to change my pants' or 'i got something on my pants' i'd get laughed at.

in china i was talking to a middle school student and we were discussing chinese names and what they mean. her name was 'liu yan lai.' I asked her what her name means and she told me 'it means swallow come!' (to clarify, 'yan' means swallow, as in the bird, and 'lai' means to come, as in arrive. swallows represent fortune or something in chinese culture.)

sorry if that last one was a bit too much!

[cimarch]

One of the Chinese teachers at a previous school thought that 'boyfriend' meant the same as 'friend who is a boy'. I had a bunch of 12-14 year old boys introducing themselves and saying, "I have lots of boyfriends but only a few girlfriends, girls can't play well."

What about swearing too? One of my TAs asked me what a sh1t was in the middle of class. I told her I'd explain after class and she was suprised. Turned out she meant sheet. Another class started using the word in class, I think one of them picked it up from a movie or something. They were saying things like, "Every morning I do a sh1t," as examples of sentence structure. What do you do in a situation like that? I pretended not to understand (they tried to clarify, even did hand movements) and moved on. It stopped inside a week. I gave a businessman lessons for a month because he was going off on a 3 month business trip to the States. I spent about half the time teaching him NOT to punctuate his sentences with "nigga, nigga, nigga".