The Funny & Embarassing side of Teaching.

I have been a Lecturer for quite a while now and as another academic year has come to an end, I’d love to share some funny times I’ve had.

• My Error - I write on the white board and make a mistake (may be omit a word). The students point out I’ve missed out a word. I notice it, “tut” to myself and look at the class and say “Yes, I was just testing to see if you’d spot the mistake”, to which they all say “Aaaah” and laugh.

• Mobiles - With a firm voice, I say to everyone, please switch of your mobile so we don’t have any distractions during class. 5 minutes later, guess whose mobile rings. Mine! (But they are so lovely, they just giggle instead of confronting me)

• Directions - I’m teaching Directions. I explain how to ask people for Directions. E.g "Excuse me, can I have directions to….” We spend about half an hour and then I ask them to practice with each other.

Student A: Somali Guy. Doesn’t speak well.

Student B: Italian Guy, speaks well, but can’t write.

So, I give the go ahead to practise having a dialogue.

Student A says: Can I have erection?

Student B looks at me, eyes wide open and shouts, "Teacher, did you hear that?" Half of the class are giggling. I cover my face with a paper as if I’m reading something for a few minutes, so Student A doesn’t feel embarrassed and then I make the correction. The students then ask me the meaning of Erection - I tell them to check the dictionary at break time. (I mean, how on earth am I supposed to explain that?)

Chinese Food - Some of the classes I teach are in the evenings and I do not fancy cooking when I get home. So I order a Chinese and its delivered to me. Well on this occasion, the Manager was in my classroom. Unfortunately, I had already ordered yet another Chinese meal and he came up knocking the classroom door to deliver it. That was soooo not professional, but I’m glad my Boss saw the funny side.

I.T. Training - I was showing someone how to use the computer. She had never touched a computer in her life. So, I explained certain things, she was doing fine. She had a question, I explained if the computer prompts you to save the file, just say yes and she actually shouted “YES” to the computer. Students around were laughing but I tried to keep my face as straight as possible. Oh bless her. I think that was my fault, I should have said “select yes”, instead of “say yes”.

Middle Finger – Sometimes, I teach little kids (about 7) at a Saturday club and I tend to use a lot of hand gestures. Well, this Saturday I told them we were doing Dictation. So I said spell “behind” and I put my hand behind, so they understood. Then I said spell “middle” and stuck my middle finger up at them and they all opened their mouths. I thought to myself, "they’re trying to play up now". Again, I said spell "middle" and silly me stuck up my middle finger again. Well, one of them said “Miss, your swearing” I looked at my hand and thought. “Ah!” and quickly put my hand away. It was a bit embarrassing and I was worried they would report me to their parents but it puzzled me how 7 year olds could know that.

I love the way students share their experiences with the whole class: Here’s one.

“Rest Room” - A lovely Polish student, shared this with the class. She works in a Pub, where they sell drinks. An American approached her and said “Excuse me, where is the “rest room”?. She said to him politely, “Oh, you can do it here, you can do it over there (pointing to a corner) or you can do it anywhere". The man said “The Toilet?”. She replied in embarassment “Oh!”.

She actually thought “rest room” meant a sort of relaxing room. Rest room is not widely used in the UK. I think it’s an American word.

Another one.

Laughing at nothing - Another Polish student said some English people were sort of sharing a joke and they were all laughing out loud and she laughed out loud with them. Her friend walked up to her and said “what are you laughing about”. She said, to her “I don’t know” and carried on laughing out loud. Honestly, these are true events.

Oh, the joys of teaching. I also learn languages from my lovely students. I can now make some dialogues in Somali, Spanish, Polish and French. Russian, I find difficult.

(Ps. I’m not making fun of my students. I love them, vice versa and some keep in touch with me even long after they’ve left. I’m just remembering times that really made me laugh and as a class, we laughed at the situations together).

May I say a big "Thank you" to all my Fans, especially Pete Maida. I can't believe I have 102 fans in such a short time. I appreciate you all and enjoy reading from you. I'm glad I met you on HP. Regards, Elena :)