Foot fingers

I am so loving my ESL classes. I look forward to teaching them just because of some of the fun things that they say.

Today, our warm up activity was to name all of the parts of our bady that we knew. When they had exhausted their memories (not a lot of things) then i started to introduce them to other ones. Head, shoulder, knees and...

Then it hit. I pointed to my feet and many of them yelled "FEET!". then i tried to see if they knew the word without me telling them so i described it to them. "No, they are like fingers but on your feet. foot fingers. One of my students enthusiasitcally yelled "TOES!" and the quiz continued.

I went ahead and pointed to many things until toes came up again. No one seemed to remember toes at first. then my student who is the most beginner of all of them yelled "Foot Fingers!". i laughed because i knew it was my fault. then another student said "No, toes. toes."

later, when we did one last review my beginner student showed his comprehension by saying "foot fingers, toes". He had a big smile. He knew it was funny.

Similarly, i was trying to teach my students bum, bottom, butt, booty or fanny. however, they did say "ass?" I had to tell them that, yes, it did mean the same thing but that that was the rude way. they had to laugh about it but some of my students couldnt get over the word and would use it any time i pointed to my bottom. "Ass! Ass!"

All i can say is that my class was full of laughs. i even managed to almost knock myself over because as i was singing the head and shoulders song i hit my buttox against a shelfing thing and almost lost it. they all laughed as well as myself and i turned bright red. It was funny.

So, moral of my story? Language learning can be embarrassing but so can language teaching.