How to make a complete prick of yourself while teaching English

When you are being trained to teach English, the precieved wisdom is that you should never broach certain subjects in the classroom...

Politics and religion are two obvious ones. Sex, is the other.

Anyway, yesterday, it being Xmas week and all, I decided to try and do something related to the festive season.So i photocopied a piece of text from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Specifically the section where the ghost of Xmas future shows Scrooge his grave and he awakes screaming to find that he is holding the 'bed-post'.

So, one of the students- a female student- asked me what a bed-post was. I promptly launched into a lengthy diatribe describing the finer points of the construction of a Victorian four-poster bed. I quickly glanced at my students to see whether or not they were following me. The bewildred glances indicated that they clearly were not.

I shifted in my chair and raised my hands:
"A bed post is the thing, you know, the thing, in the corner of your bed. You know, behind you. You know, the thing (nervous glances)... that you. You eh..."

tumbleweed rolls through

And then I had a brainwave...

"Oh you know! The thing behind you. That you hang onto, you know when (frantic gesticulations and miming of hanging onto a bed-post, whilst rocking back and forth) when you're you know... oh shit..."

It was at this point that the entire class exploded laughing. I love teaching. I really do.