I tutor a little boy (let's call him "T") every Thursday afternoon. T is 7 years old, his native language is German, and he's also completely fluent in English... Must be nice! :) His grandfather is American (from Alabama), and T's family takes a 6-week trip to the U.S. every summer to visit him... So, needless to say, he's been exposed to English and the American culture from a very early age (and, being that his grandpa is from Alabama, I'm sure you can imagine what T's English sounds like... it's like English with a German accent and a southern drawl... Interesting! :))... The only reason he's in tutoring for English is so that he doesn't lose it... Apparently, after starting school last year, T felt awkward about the fact that he knew so much more English than the rest of the children, so he completely stopped speaking it and refused to speak it at home. Poor kid... So, the family enrolled him in tutoring at once... And, that's where I came into the picture. Once they found out that I was an American living in Germany, and that I was a certified elementary teacher in the U.S., and I was out of work at the time, I was contacted and asked to work with T... And, I gladly accepted! :) So, for the past year, T and I have been working together every Thursday. Most of our sessions are spent simply talking... And, it never ceases to amaze me, the things that come out of that child's mouth. :) And, yesterday was no exception...
We were sitting at the table talking about his day at school. He didn't seem to thrilled with the things they had done in school that day, so he asked me if he could change the subject. I said that was ok, and asked him what he wanted to talk about. His response was... "Monster Garage"... Great! For those of you that aren't familiar with "Monster Garage", it was a show on the Discovery Channel, starring Jesse James (the owner of the West Coast Choppers), and the premise of the show was to have teams of five people modify some type of vehicle into what they referred to as a "monster machine"... If the teams failed to make a "monster machine" the car was destroyed in some way by Jesse James. Needless to say, it's not a typical show that a 7-year old would watch. :)
So, T started talking about "Monster Garage"... His dad bought the DVD series the last time they were in the U.S., so they've been watching them recently. T was telling me about his favorite episode, when he looked at me and said, "...and then Jesse James said 'What the hell is going on here?'"... The sentence caught me a little off-guard, so my initial response was, "What?"... To which T repeated, "... and then Jesse James said 'What the hell is going on here?'"... Whoa! My initial thought was, "Did I just hear him correctly"? And then when he repeated the statement, I definitely knew I had heard him right the first time! But, the funniest thing about the whole situation was the fact that I was sitting there slightly shocked by the fact that this 7-year old was swearing and he continued right on talking like it was no big deal, because for him (not being a native English speaker) it isn't a big deal! :)
By the time I had recovered from my initial shock, T had quoted about three more sentences, a couple of which had some type of swear word in it... Lovely! So, the question was, how should I handle that type of situation? I mean, for him, the word isn't exactly a "bad word" being that it's not part of his native language... Add to that the fact that all of the U.S. television shows that air over here do not dub out the inappropriate language... So, for T, he wasn't really doing anything wrong. Meanwhile, for me, I was taken aback by the fact that this little 7-year old was swearing in my language... What to do?? I couldn't lecture him for using the word because he doesn't really know any better, but I didn't want to just let it go and let him think that it was completely ok to say, plus I didn't want to make it sound like it was a REALLY big deal because then it would make the word that much more "endearing" to him and he'd try to use it all of the time for shock value (trust me, I know how T thinks! :))...
So, I handled it the best way I knew how... I explained that he probably heard the word "hell" before in television shows and whatnot, but it wasn't the type of word that he should be using... I told him that in English, that word is not considered a very nice word and that most boys and girls in America don't use it. I then asked him to do a favor for me and not say it anymore... And then we moved on... I didn't lecture, I didn't tell him that he definitely couldn't say it, and I didn't dwell on it... I simply explained the situation and carried on with the rest of the lesson...
I'm not exactly certain if it worked 100% or if he even got the message, but either way, for the remainder of the time that we talked about "Monster Garage", the "hell" word never came up again... So, that's always a good sign. :) I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens now...
This is where I would be interested in your input... What do you think? Do you think I handled it the right way? Or should I have done something different? Any advice in case it happens again (which I'm pretty sure it will considering the amount of kids I'm teaching English to nowadays! :))?
And on that note, I've got to get packing... We're heading to Austria to go skiing for the weekend... yay! There's a group of 8 of us, and we've found a cute little villa to rent for the weekend. I'm super excited to get back on my skis!! It'll be my first time skiing this season, so I'm definitely looking forward to it! Unfortunately, Brian isn't able to ski this year because of his leg... So, he's going with us, but instead of skiing, he's planning on hiking around the area and taking pictures... It's not quite as exciting as skiing for him, but he's looking forward to it as well... Plus, I told him that I would meet him in the lodge every now and then to keep him company. :) I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Oh, and one more thing... Stacy, if you're reading this, I'm REALLY sorry for teaching Kaden the word "sheisse"! :) It came back to haunt me! :)
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