Molding the Minds of the Future of Korea

As a reward to my best-behaved, highest-level boys class, I taught them how to properly use English swear words on Tuesday in our after school conversation class.

The whole lesson began when I heard one boy call another boy a "fag." I asked him to repeat the word and explain it to me, what he thought it meant. Then I told him that word didn't even mean homosexual, it meant a cigarette, and what is so funny about calling your friend a cigarette? Nothing really. He got the point that it's not a cool word, or really even used in America (not true, really, but I don't want my students saying it). I told him American teenagers think people who say words like "fag" are outdated and would not be friends with them. (They are always hungry to know what is cool and popular in America.) So then one boy asked me, "Teacha. What do American students say that is bad?"

I hesitated for about a minute. Then I thought about middle school me, who was studying French for the third full year, and desperate to know any kind of swear words. My thought process also ran the lines of, hey. If they ever come to America, they're gonna hear these words, and frequently, too, if they ever come to New York. Most of my kids already know what the words are, anyway, and I want them to use them properly. It makes learning a language more fun! Swearing! Yay!

So, I began by asking them what swear words they already knew. Most were pretty hesitant to say anything, thinking they'd get in trouble, but soon enough, there were "farts," "son of a bitches," "shits" and "asses" muttered from every corner of the room. I started writing a list of slang words on the board, like, "sucks," "crap," etc. The response was overwhelming, they were so attentive!
Soon we were laughing and making gramatically correct sentences together. It was a beautiful thing.

Today I took video of them swearing to prove to my friends that this actually happened, haha. When I took the video, they were extremely nervous, like I was going to use it to blackmail them one day (which I hadn't initially thought of, but with a little editing, is actually a great idea). The result is comedic gold.