In my Junior 1 classes this week, I have been asking the students to tell me their favorite English words. I had done this activity already (here and here) with my Junior 2 and 3 students and found that it was a nonthreatening way to get each individual student in the class to speak individually.

I love the Junior 1 kids (6th graders) … their English abilities are very minimal (except for a few bright kids in each class), but they are so eager and oh-so-cute. Because some of the classes are so big, I can’t always get through the entire class in one period. But it’s still worth doing this activity, even if it’s only to hear their cute responses.

This morning, as I was doing this activity with Class 391, I was very impressed by the quality of some of the words. valuable, bamboo, dictionary, imaginative … these were good words! Some of the others were more ordinary, but still good … season, children, quickly, pencil case, backpack, program, potato, cartoon. And some were just funny … Mr. Bean, W.C.

Then I got to one of the brighter kids, one with a pretty good English vocabulary. She stood up, and in a strong and confident voice proclaimed, “My favorite English word is impotent.”

I was sure I had heard her wrong. “Im-po-tent?” I asked, slowly enunciating each syllable to be sure that she understood. With answers like cigarette and W.C. (water closet), I’ve learned not to be too surprised.

“Yes, im-po-tent.”

I totally lost it. I’ve been laughing ever since. When I had the rest of the class repeat the word out loud, I was rolling. When each subsequent student said a word, I laughed. All the way home, I cracked up. And even as I type this, I can’t wipe this stupid grin off my face.

It wasn’t until just now that I realized it … she probably meant important.

Posted to webeldotnet on Friday, October 27th, 2006 at 10:37 am EST in China & Humor & Education (comment feed). If you refer to this post on your blog, please trackback. Thanks!