Sunday, September 24, 2006

The students

A bunch of us went out to the pub on Friday night with one of the classes, which was fun. It was a high-level class, so they could pretty much just chat with us - they even got some things I thought would go over their heads, e.g. when I asked Alasdair (look, I spelled it correctly!) if he was hitting on one of the students - d'oh! Although I was trying to explain to one of them that a common Czech expression 'fakt jo', which means basically "that's right" sounds pretty much exactly like 'f--- you' to us. Trouble is, he thought I was actually saying 'f---- you' to him ha ha! Eventually I managed to get him to understand that I wasn't saying it to him, but the furthest we got was him thinking I was asking him to teach me to swear in Czech... which he didn't even do! But I've gotta get me a t-shirt with 'fakt jo' on it ha ha. If only they made them instead of stupid 'Czech me out' ones...

Anyway, I thought I would present a couple of funny things students (and teachers) have said:

- I was teaching a class with the theme of photography, and I asked the students to imagine what was going on in a photo of four men on a rooftop. One of them started off "I think they're four friends" (nice, I'm with you so far) "who have gone up onto the roof to commit suicide." Ummm, riight...

- In someone else's class, they were playing a game where you have to describe an item to your partner without naming it. Donuts? "The favourite food of policemen." I guess that one's universal, eh?

- A teacher who shall remain nameless was teaching a class about star signs. One of the answers in an exercise was 'Cancer'. After one of the students gave that answer, he said "Does everyone have cancer?" It was pretty much over the students' heads, but we all cracked up, so he goes, "No, wait. Cancer has two meanings in English, I don't mean..." at which point he trailed off thankfully.

- In someone's class on sport and exercise, one girl said she liked going to the gym because afterwards she liked being sweaty. What?

I'm sure there are plenty more I can't remember at the moment, but hard as teaching English is, it can have its fun moments, let's not forget.
One week of CELTA to go! Then I'll be a proper teacher ?!?

4 comments:

  1. Um... ha! penis? I know that was a teacher not a student... but surely worthy of comment
    - guess who

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  2. Ah ha ha I think it's young Gracie. Sadly I missed that one...

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  3. so did I. and I even said the frickin' thing

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  4. That first observation sounds like the Nick Hornby novel A Long Way Down. Except they're all strangers in that book and the meeting on the roof is a coincidence.

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