Adventures in ESL

Every Wednesday, I get to teach English as a Second Language to a group of women and their children.  It is a great way for me to practice Spanish and we all help one another learn.  Every Wednesday, I have another great story.  Here is one recent one:

I am teaching and say, “What’s that?”  One of the women asks “Que es ‘What’s that’?”   Good question.  As we delve into the answer, another woman says it sounds like that rude term for women, a “wifesat.”  I am completely confused.  What is a wifesat??  I asked her to spell it but that does not really help that often.  We talked at length about when she’d heard the term, if she was sure it was English…I could not think of any curse word that sounded like “wifesat”.  After a few more context clues, we figured it out!!  It was from the phrase, “Where your wife at?”  Which, we explained was rude because it implied that the gentleman did not know where his wife was, therefore the woman was a possible cheat.  Wow.  Who would have thought a class about conjugating the verb forms of “to be” in past, present, and future would turn into a lesson on vaguely implying that a man can’t keep his wife “in check”.  I love volunteering!