Students Say/Do The
Funniest/Strangest Things
3
June 2002 –
This has happened all throughout the current school year. One of my students in
my D Group, Piotr Klimek, smokes cigarettes, and whenever we are doing an
activity and anything related to smoking comes up, it just so happens that it
is (accidentally) his turn.
20 May 2002 – Today in my D Group (FCE level), I
heard a student use a word that was very similar to a bad word. I told them not
to use that language in my classroom, they asked why, and told me it meant, ‘Oh
chicken’ (I knew the root of the word, so I knew they were telling me the
truth). I inquired as to why they say ‘Oh chicken,’ and one of the students
replied, “Because it’s better than saying ‘Oh fuck.’” I agreed.
9 May 2002 – Today in my G Group (Intermediate
level), we were reviewing sequences beginning with ‘before’ and ‘after.’ I
usually use the ‘buy a car’ example, so this time I asked them for a topic that
we could write a sequence about. They decided on ‘steal a computer from a shop’
(many of them love computers and that topic comes up a few times every
class). Here are the steps they
came up with: 1. Find a place, 2. Beat up the salesman, 3. Grab the computer,
4. RUN!!
14 March 2002 – Today in my Group D (FCE level), one
of the students graduating this year, Piotr Kolodziej, was telling us about his
“visit” to the army a few days ago (all graduating males are required to
“visit” the army for medical tests and career pathing in case they don’t
continue their education). He said that he was a grade A. I asked him what that
meant, and he said, “It means I’ll be a good solider.” We all got a laugh out
of that because he’s planning on attending university to be a lawyer.
12 March
2002 – Today, I told
my G group that this was my last year in Mragowo, and they seemed to be sad.
Many of them asked why, and then Mateusz, a student who rarely ever does
homework, said, “I’ll start doing homework if you stay.”
19 September 2001 – I was briefly talking to my CAE class
about the events that had happened in NYC earlier this month and told
them that I feel safe in Poland. One of them (Szymon) asked why, so I asked
him, “Do you think the Taliban know where Poland is?” He said, “Let’s hope
not!”
9 March 2001 – Another one from the FCE class. We were
discussing different kinds of ways to dress (comfortable, casual, smart &
formal) and when we would wear each kind. We had discussed comfortable and
casual, then I asked them what the next step up was. I was looking for someone
to say “Smart,” but instead, one student said, “Naked.”
1 March 2001 – We were doing a multiple choice
exercise in my FCE class and I asked Iza (a nickname for Izabela) what she
thought the answer was. She replied “E, like Iza,” (in Polish, the letter I is
pronounced like an English long E). The entire class burst out in laughter and
she realized her mistake. The following day we were doing a speaking exercise
in which one of the questions was for students to tell about a very
embarrassing thing they’ve done. Iza said, “Yesterday in class when I made my
mistake.”
26 February 2001 – Two of my students in my N Group, Kuba
and Piotr T, are very talkative and sometimes disruptive to the class. I don’t
mind students straying a bit from the lesson as long as they speak English,
however these two speak Polish. There is no reason for that as both are very
fluent in English.
Today, they came into class
and were wearing ties. They only spoke English and did not speak other than to
do the materials in class. It was very strange, but I liked it. The atmosphere
in the class was totally different and the other students thought that it was
very weird not to hear a lot of chitchat in Polish while we were doing the
lesson.
With this entry, I have added
the word “Do” to the title of this page.
16 February 2001 – I’ve been encouraging my students who
have brothers and/or sisters that study at our school to speak English with
their sibling to improve their English. I told one of my students, in my B
Class, Kuba (Pre Intermediate level), on Wednesday that whenever he thinks of
speaking to his brother, Szymon (FCE class/level), in Polish to actually speak
to him in English. Today, I asked Szymon if they had been speaking English. He
told me that Kuba had told him that I requested that they speak English
together. He then asked if I meant “Nice English.” I told him that that was
what I had meant. He said that they had spoken English, but it didn't fit into
that category. Now that that point is clarified, I hope that they will.
5 December 2000 – In my G class (Pre Intermediate level)
we were discussing different types of meat and their English names. One of the
students, Tomasz, asked me what “pork” was. I said that it was meat from a pig.
He said, “Like Porky Pig,” (referencing the cartoon character). I told
him that that would be a good way to remember it.
31 October 2000 – In my G class (Pre Intermediate level)
we were discussing possessive adjectives. I gave the example of “This is my
book” and then looked at Mateusz and asked him what I would say if I had his
book. I was looking for him to say “This is his book”. Karolina, the girl
sitting next to him, said, “You stole it.”
23 October 2000 – One of the students in my E class (Upper-Intermediate)
is named Szymon, which translates to Simon in English. Today we were doing
reported speech and I had each student tell five other students five different
things. After we were done, the students then had to say who they had spoken
to, what they were told in direct speech and then change that to reported
speech. When the students got to what they were told by Szymon, they started
off by saying "Simon says"!
21 September 2000 – I noticed that one of my
students (Michal) from my Upper-Intermediate (E) class was wearing a different
winter coat than he had last year, so I said to him "New coat?" He
replied "No, old coat." I then said, "Oh, I haven't seen that
one before," to which he replied "The other one sank." My reply
was "Oh," as I thought that he might have been using the incorrect
verb (which would have been highly unusual). He must have sensed the confusion
in my tone of voice, as he then said, "It sank in the lake." I
replied "Oh, okay." It was good to know that he in fact was using the
correct verb.
13 March 2000 – In my elementary M class we were
talking about the Olympics and a student (Wojtek) formed a sentence that said,
"The teams wons medals." Realizing that he might not know that the
word won (which is actually the past simple tense of the verb "to
win") was the same in singular and plural, I said to him, "What is
the plural form of "won"?" He replied "Two."
25 February 2000 – In my elementary (B)
class, we were discussing dates. I put the year 1966 up on the board and said
to them, "What happened in this year?" Kornelia (she’s 13 years old)
raised her hand and said "That’s they year my dad was born." After
everyone was done chuckling, I then said to them, "That’s the year I was
born." They roared with laughter. For a few minutes, I felt old.
11 February 2000 – In my adult beginners class we were
learning about the present continuous tense. I assigned them the task of
writing five present continuous sentences about themselves. Greg wrote, "I
am working as a technician of exploitation." I explained to the class how
the word exploitation is used in English, and they told me how it is used in
Polish. It is used very differently than in English. After thinking about it, I
guess that "Technician of Exploitation" could be a politically correct
term for a member of the mob, however, that is not what Greg meant.
9 February 2000 – In my young beginners class, we were
doing an exercise about how to ask others about what they like and don’t like.
I assigned them come up with ten questions to ask other students so we could
practice. Most came up with things like "Do you like school?"
"Do you like dogs?" "Do you like ice cream?" etc. I saw one
of my students, Sebastian, looking in the dictionary in the back of the book.
One of his questions turned out to be "Do you like houseplants?"
8 February 2000 – I am giving a final test a week from
today for my Intermediate students (Group E) to progress to the Upper
Intermediate level. One of my students, Michal, has been joking with me for a
while now about getting the test in advance. I declined the offer he made me to
print it out. Today, he asked that if he called me on the phone, would I give
him the answers. I said "Yes," then mentioned to him that I don’t
have a phone. The thing that makes this even funnier is that he is one of the
best students in the class and I am sure he will pass.
January 2000 – In my G class we were doing a writing
exercise to practice the present continuous tense. I put the students in groups
of two and told them to pretend they were on holiday (vacation) and were
writing postcards a friend. One of the groups started off with “Dear Joanna”
(Joanna is one of the students in the class). For some unknown reason, the next
group did the same. The rest of the class caught on and all of them changed the
name of whomever they were writing to Joanna! From that day on, every time we
did a writing assignment that involved writing to a person, they always started
out with “Dear Joanna.”
December 1999 – In my adult beginners class, we were
discussing what type of work the students do. Ola, a distinguished and very
respectable woman said, "I sell drugs." What she meant was that she
runs a pharmacy out of her house.
