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Q: What's the funniest thing your English students have said?
As a teacher in China for a fair time now, I've had some hilarious things barked at me by my students in there broken attempts at English. Here's a few that cracked me up:
Teacher: What did you do today?
Student: I ate my grandfather's eyes and legs.
Student: Have you ever slept in a volcano?
Student: You face is like a noodle pizza
There have been more and I only wished I'd written them down! What are some of yours?
11 years 14 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
We did a study of idioms one week, and I picked 20 that had an animal theme, like, "quiet as a mouse," "eagle eyes," "fat cat," "dog eat dog," etc. Anyway, the students had to pick ten of them and incorporate them into a narrative story, using the idioms in a proper context. One student wrote about a brother and sister going into business. He was a "night owl." She, however, had an "eager beaver." 
Here's one: You should never let your car lust ( he meant rust), if your car lusts you can do nothing about it.
- What are your plans for summer?
- I'm going to the bitch.
- You mean you're going to the beach?
-???
Give me a shit of paper. (he meant sheet)
I gave students the beginning of proverbs & ask them to come up with their own ending. I've got some hilarious sayings: Better late than pregnant, Absence makes another absence, A friend in need is money.
OP, does your face really look like a noodle pizza?
It cracks me up when university students matter of factly blurt out that they like "playing with their friends" everyday.
It's much more hilarious when they say,
"I was alone and couldn't meet my friends so I just played with myself."
ElenaDob:
One of my male students said, " I'll go home & relax myself".
I was once a judge at an English talent show. The students would tell stories, poems, sing, etc. There were a few stories where the characters were animals. The main character in one of the stories was a rooster, except as most of you know, they sometimes don't use the word rooster.
''The cock got up early in the morning
''The cock got angry...
and so on, and so on, and so on.
There were hundreds of parents at this event, but thankfulyl no one there knew much English let alone know the other common use for the word.
Another one that springs to my mind - I was teaching kindergarten kids the word "fork" once, and yeah, you can how they ended up saying that. ....
At the beginning of my term at the school, I taught them the common greetings like "How are you? and the "I'm fine, thank you very much! replying.". Few days later I showed them some flashcards with pigeons and asking "what is this?, they replied all at once: "I'm fine thank you very much!"
icnif77:
At my School, I changed Q in few days from 'How are you?' to 'How old are you?'. Answer was the same: 'I'm fine!'
"You can't be a nerd, you're too pretty!" This from a girl who was in love with Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.
I once had a teenage girl say to me "Are there many people in your country that can speak English as well as you do?".
Also whilst giving English lessons to a young boy "Why do you keeping teaching me things I don't know?".
Playing Taboo with an adult class (they have to guess a word Im describing without my using a list of like words) and I started out "When a man and woman love each other very much...." and a 25yr old girl shouted "FINGERING!!" I busted out laughing. I couldn't explain it, but later she asked why "finger ring" was so funny, I realized she just meant wedding ring.
Another time a student had his guitar with him, and i was playing it, and another young lady asked "Can everyone in your country play guitar?"
A teacher was doing the ":who stole a cookie from the cookie jar" routine. He then asked the children to make up original lines by themselves. One child said "who stole an ipod from the ipod jar?"
I showed the children an orange and one child shouted "orgy."
I was teaching sounds of animals for kindergarten...when i showed them a picture of a duck....the pupils sounded,"kaak, kaak, kaak", I corrected the sound by saying "quack, quack, quack". I showed a picture of a frog...the pupils sounded, "qua, qua, qua", I corrected them again by saying its "ribbit, ribbit, ribbit". I showed another picture, a dog, they were extremely excited and blurted "aw, aw, aw". I said no, it sounds like this "arf, arf, arf or woof woof woof". The Chinese assistant corrected me and she said the dog must sound "bow wow wow". I turned red and I want to explode. I just said " fine, let's not talk about animals then, how about a gun, what's the sound of a gun?" she smiled at me innocently and sounded "bing, bing, bing". I stood up and banged my head on the wall.
This wasn't my student's mistake but one I made myself yesterday. I was making a beef stew and my mother in-law (I only speak Chinese with her) asked me what I was making, so I searched around in my head for the correct word for stew (dun) and accidently pulled out 'dupin', which I realized moments after saying it and seeing the troubled expression on her face, means 'narcotics'.
Once while teaching a student asked me how to say cao which with a certain tone means f@#$ck. and with another tone means grass. so I told him grass. then he turns to another student as says grass your mother. another student once asked me how to say da bian which means poop. i told him the literal translation. da means big bian means bowel movement so i told him large bowel movement. then he said oh its too hard. I dont need to say it.
Young kids, unable to pronounce the word "thank", reproduce a simpler sound. When instructed to say "Thank you, teacher." they instead go "Fuck you, teacher." Even the assistants can barely contain their laughter, and we have very different senses of humour.
I've had a few, but one that stands out. A young adult class discussing their futures.
One Chemistry major, a guy says..." I want to spend all my time in the lavatory, I love the lavatory & can see my whole future in the lavatory. Of course meaning..labatory.
I couldn't contain my laughter, unfortunately the other students didn't get it!
Until I explained it to them, then laughs all round...
"I have no hobbies...I am a coach tomato"
"But we don't know these words!".....Thats why it's called learning not knowing!
Class topic (Lying)
Students have to say 3 things (2 truths and 1 lie) and the rest have to guess which is the lie.
I say "Don't make it easy!"
1st statement....."I am sitting next to David"....she wasn't...D'oh!
**Kids Class**
"What do you call meat from the cow?....Beef!
"What do you call meat from the pig?.....Pig Beef!
Student didn't want to disappoint me, and he replied: 'No ming bai!'
I adopt it, and add it to my Chinese vocabulary
.
When introducing himself... "Hi! I'm a gay!" (instead of guy)
