Say What??

I know I've told you before that my class is made up of mostly ESOL students.  It's been pretty evident up until now how little vocabulary they have and how their accents make it hard for me to understand them sometimes.  It's getting better the more they learn and the more language they acquire.  And recently, I've had no issues understanding them. 

Today during my mini-lesson I was bashfully reminded how ESOL some of my students are. 

The past week we've been learning about adjectives... describing words.  I stole a project from my friend/coworker and had them list adjectives that described themselves.  Like a good teacher, I did a model project of myself.  So, I wrote down a few words under my pictures that described me:

• tall
• funny
• kind
• brown eyed
• smart
• creative

And then I let the flood gates open by inviting them to help describe me.  Now, this is the part where I tell you how fun it is to be a teacher - teaching is the biggest ego boost.  Here are the words they added:

• beautiful
• silly
• super smart
• hot (cringe worthy)
• nice
• bestest (I'll take it)
• huggable
• loving
• respectful
• responsible
• young

And then, when I was all warm with love from my students, one of them yelled out:
..."AND, you have big boos"...

My heart sank.  He said I had big boobs.  And one of the other little boys started giggling because he  heard the same thing I did (a little disconcerting that he knew what those were).  What was I supposed to say?  What do I do?

I took a deep breath and had him repeat it again like a good ESOL teacher.  And he said it again... "you have big boos."  But this time he made hand gestures.  And he motioned to his feet/shoe area.  AHHH, my big boots!!  Phew... 

Unfortunately I told him that big boots wasn't an adjective to describe me but that big was an adjective to describe my boots.  And with that I wrote big on the board.  Hey, if the boot fits, wear it!

::end scene::