English Slang.

Yesterday, I taught my middle school students about English Slang and Idioms. We started the class by brainstorming all the English Slang and Idioms they could come up with. This is the top-speaking class in the school, so I expected really good results from them. They didn't disappoint. :) We started compiling a list of words and phrases they had heard of, but didn't know the meaning of. These are just a few of the words/phrases on our list:

-redneck
-smarty pants
-tight wad
-cold shoulder
-teacher's pet
-right-hand man

These are all common words and phrases that I've used in the past or at least heard of. Try explaining "redneck" to four Korean middle school students who don't have a background of American culture...

"It's a person from the South (South what, teacher?) who...uh...lives in a trailer (explain trailer, teacher!) and they live away from everyone else out in the country (what country, teacher?) and maybe they don't really take care of themselves and don't shower?? They listen to country music (what is country music, teacher?) and they drive pick-up trucks?..."

That's pretty much what our conversation was like. It was difficult to explain without having any background knowledge of American culture. I sort of let that one go. It sounded awful when I was explaining it, but that wasn't the intention. I LOVE country music and pick-up trucks and boots! But I'm definitely not a redneck....I ended up leaving class and getting my iPod. I showed them a picture of one of my Luke Bryan albums. (He's not a redneck, but he's a country boy, so I figured that would work.) They enjoyed looking at the albums and listening to the music, but I don't think they ever understood what I was trying to explain. Oh well...I was a lot more successful with the other words and phrases. When we talked about "teacher's pet," I definitely got the point across:

"This is a person who walks into class and tells the teacher, 'you look so beautiful! I like your hair! is that a new shirt?' and then tells the teacher they do not want to take the test..." In unison, all four students said, "Ohhhh!!!!" and then said the equivalent of "teacher's pet" in Korean. The class went on like this for about a half hour. The students were really engaged, and we were cracking up the whole time! It was great! I didn't really have any expectations for the lesson because I didn't know how interested they would be. They ended up LOVING it! We had about five minutes left of class, and I asked the students if they had any more English slang or idioms, and one of the students (a girl) pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and handed it to me. On this paper, she had written:

"dawg"
"wit"
"dat"
"mah"

I wrote them on the board. The students said, "Teacher, what is that?" Again, how do I explain these? So, I wrote "dog," "with," "that," and "mom," next to each of the words. I told them that sometimes people make the words short to speak quicker. I didn't even think about trying to explain the concept of "ghetto" so I just left it at that. :)

On Friday, we're celebrating Halloween at the academy! The younger students are going to be in costumes, and Darren asked the teachers to dress up as well. I'm going to be a cowgirl, since it's easy and I won't have to spend any money on a costume. I'm going to wear my cowgirl boots, a plaid shirt, jeans, and braid my hair. I'm definitely going to bring my camera to school so I can take a lot of pictures with my students. :)