Just after I was hired, my new department chair sent over a list of school rules. In amongst a lot of pretty normal rules was this:
"...and the students are not permitted to wear trainers under any circumstance!"
I'm from the Ohio hill-country. "Trainers" here are elastic-legged rubber britches that you put on tots who are just learning to wear cloth underpants to catch the inevitable dribbles. Yea, I knew that couldn't be it, but the image (brief as it was) of my high school-aged students trying to sneak into my classroom wearing rubber britches beneath their uniforms was good for a giggle or two.
By the way, for those of you who still don't know "Trainers" are sneakers or gym shoes. |
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Yep, different culture, various point of view. It reminds me when i was in Kyoto, sitting at the bar drinking with friends. Here in Quebec, when we cheers-up, we say a word that sounds like "chinchin", its just a local slang that we don't really use anymore. But Japaneses were laughings at me after hearing me saying it. No wonder why, find out after, that penis (sorry for the puritans ;o) )in Japanese language, is chinchin. And this is not a urbain legend, just the true fact.
Can be shure, after this, never say chinchin again but "Kampai" :0)
Yves
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"Sophie, would you crack the window a little for me please."
Ok, this little request to open the window a little today during class caused my students a great deal of confusion. |
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Sorry, I was interrupted yesterday, but I'd like to finish what I started to say now...
Anyway, I asked my student to crack the window a little because there was an ugly smell in the room which I wanted to air out quickly. She walked over to the window while the rest of the class watched in painful silence (usually a talkative bunch). When she got to the window she said "Miss are you sure you want me to crack this window." As I was busy putting something up on the board for the class I answered "Yes, I need to get that smell out of here." She then asked, "Miss, what should I crack it with?" I answered, "Just use the handle." A few seconds later I hear, "Miss, I can't get the handle off to crack the window." That is when the it hit me...why it took so long I can't say...and I answered "Sweetie, to crack a window is just American for open it a little bit." The whole class in unison then said "Oh!" and started giggling. At the end of class, Sinead raised her hand and asked, "Miss will you teach us some more American words." "Oh, you can count on it," I answered.
I then shared the story with the other teachers in my department (all British) and the howled with laughter. The little girl in question (in fact that whole class) is very eager to please, and probably would have smashed my window for me if something hard had been available to hand. I just got lucky. |
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| By the way...I did actually change the young lady's name to protect the innocent, but it now seems I used two different names for her. Real event, fake name(s). ;-) |
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