I love teaching ESL. I love teaching citizenship. And most of all, I love teaching my students. But teaching middle-age Chinese speakers about US citizenship in English is no easy task. English is hard!
Forget for the moment my embarrassment at trying to explain to my students (who are all a good twenty to thirty years older than me) what a prostitute is, what it means to solicit a prostitute, and the definition of a habitual drunkard. Let's focus instead on the funny things my students say when trying to learn English. Here are three of my favorites:
Q: What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
A: The Bill of Rice
Q: What are the two main political parties in the US?
A: The republican party and the demonic party
Q: What form of government does the US have?
A: A reproblem
I was lucky to have some of the best students around; Mr. Hahn, who wore awesome gold-rimmed glasses; Ms. Ho, who would giggle into her hand after answering a question and always tried to help the other students with hand signals; Ms. Chen, who answered every question half in Chinese and half in English; and Ms. Yeung, who passed her test and is now a US Citizen!
Success!
(Boy am I glad I don't have to learn English or be tested on the Constitution cause I might not pass!)
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1 comment:
hahahaha this was pretty funny, i can totally hear my mom saying something like that. it's awesome that you're teaching a citizenship class though! must be nice having someone who isn't scary teach them stuff.
i was talking to someone the other day about citizenship and we said the exact same thing about how the majority of america probably wouldn't be able to pass the test, much less foreigners.. haha we're still connected! :)
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