Monday 25 November 2013

School Chuckles - Language Confusion

Many times it's a challenge for our Kindergarten students - they speak only Hutterisch, then come to school and start learning German and English.... So this story will be funnier for people who understand Hutterisch.

I was teaching Lesson D from the Animated Literacy Program, and was introducing my students to
the song: (Each letter lesson has a song, story and gesture.)

Daisy Dragon like to dance
Dance and dine on Date Delight
Dainty polka dotted D's
Dangle from Daisy's diaper.
Daisy dines on Date Delight
At the Dragon Ville Dairy.
 
After listening to the song, I proceeded to explain what some of the words mean, starting with dine. Before I could get to telling them that Date Delight is a dessert, one little boy was rather perplexed and wanted to know, "Warum esst sie de Leit?" (Why does she eat the people?) The Hutterisch translation for people is 'de Leit'.

Yes, we have our share of chuckles at school, especially this year with five Kindergartners!
 
 

7 comments:

  1. My Favourite such story is from Elma. She overheard an EA correcting a child in your school once. "No, that is not a rooster, that is a horse!", when shown a picture of a horse.

    Ask her about it.

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  2. Yes, I remember that one as well. I believe every teacher has similar stories. I wish they would share some here.

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  3. How sweet! I am ESL certified, but our language other than English here is Spanish.

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  4. One of our Kindergarten boys was always very inquisitive. Whenever his parents placed some new food on the table, he always wanted to know what it was called and where it came from. One day they had pork chops. His parents explained that it was called pork chops because it came from pigs which were also called porkers. Another time they had beef steaks. Again, his parents explained that beef came from cattle which were also called beef. Eventually the youngster thought he had it figured out. But one day his mom placed some angel food cake dessert on the table. When she told him that this was called angel food cake, he looked up at her with a shocked expression on his face. "Who killed and butchered the angels" he gasped!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, IK. Funny! Kids come up with priceless questions.

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  5. So funny, Ian! You know things are getting out of hand when angels are being eaten!

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  6. Sometimes it's worth it to go back and read old posts. Had a laugh out loud moment reading this Who butchered the angels? story.

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