Job Discussion Forums

[basiltherat]

Had half a group yesterday because of the Christmas break The section of the material that we were covering was on phrasal verbs. As it was an adult cass and the trainees had daily contact wth expariates in an industrial setting, I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to explain some uses of the F word in phrasal vebs (f@@@ off, f@@@ up etc). I stressed several times that they should under no circumstances ever use these words, either at work or socially.However, I did stress that they have heard and will again in the future, hear these expressions from foriegn workers and should be able to understand what is meant by each one. In other words, not to stand around if someone says ""f@@@ off"" and to understand what the guy means if he says ""Well, gents, this generator is well and truly f@@@ed !""
It went quite well and then we moved onto other more tradtionally taught phrasal verbs.
Would you teach these kinds of vulgar expessions ? Just interested.

[khmerhit]

I used the F word with my young students on a daily basis-- it was quite inexcusable and wrong, but it made me feel a bit better and kept them quiet. They didnt seem to care, but maybe they didnt understand.

You have a duty to teach it to adults, you did the right thing--- treated them as adults.
merry Christmas
kh

[denise]

I agree. They're going to hear it, they need to (and quite likely want to) understand it, and they're adults.

If I could find a meaningful way to include such lessons, I would--they just haven't seemed to fit in anywhere. I think my own philosophy is that if the students ask, I will of course tell them. Sometimes I swear in class if we're just chatting (before or after class, or during breaks), because I want them to hear a different style of language (a style that they already hear in movies, etc.).

I gave my listening class an eavesdopping assignment and asked them to listen to and take note of, among other things, different slang expressions/idioms. One of the students came back to class with a few very common swearing expressions--don't remember which ones--and I was delighted! He had gone out and brought back examples of natural language to the class, and I didn't have to worry about whether or not swearing was relevant to the lesson--he did it for me!

d

[struelle]

[dmb]

I don't need to teach it as they already know it due to the fact that they spend their freetime listening to Hip Hop and watching hollywood films. If only their classroom English was as fluent as their swearing
Sometimes it cracks me up. Last week one of my students was patiently waiting for his colleauge to join him for a pair work activity. His patience run out and beckoned him with 'Eh nigga, get your f***ing black a** over here now.'I should've have disciplined him but I cracked up, It's hard to tell someone off when you are laughing

[leeroy]

I use "flip" as a code-word - students can (and sometimes do) insert "flip" into a moderated "coursebook" sentence, which I then give them feedback on.

"Mary was 15 minutes late" = "Mary was 15 flipping minutes late"
"Where had you gone?" = "Where the flip had you gone?"

etc...

[guty]

To borrow from leeroy,
I have used this sentence, which I overheard whilst camping in Wales, for discussion of types of words in English

The flippin flipper's flippin flipped,

[shenyanggerry]

I did a class on the words you WILL NOT use. It included the 'seven words' and more. They picked up on the concept right away. Every language has obscenities well known even to those who would never utter them.

I told them that when they knew the language well enough to understand why these words/terms were obscene, they'd know when they could use them. Until then, avoid. Some students thanked me afterwards as nobody had bothered to explain this before.

The emotional baggage of obscenity is learned in childhood. Few L2 speakers really understand when to use 'making love', when to use 'f*cking'.

[guest of Japan]

I've never taught them in a classroom situation, but I'm not opposed to it. Something that has always bothered me about Japan is that Japanese people will swear up and down that there are no equivailent swear words in Japanese until you name a few, then they just say "Oh yeah. but you shouldn't say those." All words have functions and no one has the right to deny a student of vocabulary that may be needed in the future.

[Kurochan]

I've thought a lot about whether to discuss obscenities and racial slurs with my university students. Sometimes we discuss them if they come up. I've met students that thought the real common name for the buttocks was the @ss, and the common name for feces was sh1t. Why? Because of the f-ing electronic dictionaries they have, which are compiled by people without a decend command of English. Those terms are the first that come up. Also, I've had a student use the "n-word," because he had heard it in a rap song, so he thought it was OK.

I did do a class at the end of one semester I called "Embarrassing English." It was about stuff my students say in Chinglish that is unwittingly dirty, or stuff they say, not knowing there is a double meaning (for instance, "My friends weren't home last night, so I stayed home and played with myself," or, "Teacher, do you want to see a picture of my p*ssy?"). I think that's useful for when the students go abroad. Of course, I only gave them this class we'd all gotten to know each other well, so it wouldn't be as awkward.

[Phil_b]

Swan's 'Practical English Usage' has a good section on swearing, including WHY it is seen as offensive.. and explains the important difference between "What are you F*cking doing in my bed" and "What are you doing f*cking in my bed"....

I did a class on it at the end of a course, because my students asked for it...... Wouldn't use it in kids classes though!!

[Wolf]

A lot of my students know these words. Movies.

Ocassinally, someone who I pass in the street will also demonstrate their ability to swear in English in my presence. I've never been called upon to teach them - indeed every institution I've worked for has discouraged me from doing so. What's more, these words are often picked up in prevalant movies, etc. They know the basics, and I'd rather not teach the phraisal verbs, passives, etc that go with them.

I doubt that this will contribute much to my students' relative ability to express themselves. I learned to swear like a sailor in Japanese from TV, and in French from my friends. I didn't learn any of those words in class, but I learned them anyway.

[BethMac]

If students ask "what does X mean?", I will give them a straight answer. However, I won't spend an entire lesson on profanity. In my opinion, foul language doesn't belong in a classroom, regardless of the students' ages and maturity levels. Idioms, yes. Profanity, no.

[dyak]

I loathe teaching swear words, I think it's better for students to learn them in the 'playground', as it were, and as we all did.

My last advanced class swore like sailors, and only the girls too; I would tell them, 'ladies don't say f***', but they insisted they were old enough to know best.

I will, however, point out the difference between, 'taking a p�ss' and 'taking the p�ss'.

[BethMac]