Dropping bombs

That same day, we were talking about monsters and the clothes they would wear.  There were pictures in their books of different monsters with strange body parts and they had to match the clothes with the correct monster.  There was a tall thin monsters with three pointy ears.  He went with the hat with three holes at the top.  There was a monster with nine fingers on each hand and he went with the gloves with nine fingers.  You get the point.  

I was again asking comprehension questions.  When introducing new words for which they have no background knowledge, scaffolding must take place, which I explained before was giving them yes/no or either/or questions.  Either/or is best in my mind because you give them the words they will need.

I asked if one monster was fat or thin.  Cultural note: in Mexico (and several other Spanish-speaking places I've visited), fat (gordo) is not an ugly word.  They use it to describe people, and it's not offensive.  I was trying to explain to them that fat is in fact offensive in the States, and you'd never want to say that, at least to a woman.

As I explain this, I tell them it's not a bad word or curse word or the like.  And Marcos, sweet Marcos says, "Like f*** you.  That's a bad word.  Can you teach us more?"

After I caught my breath, I explained that that was the worst of the worst and if they ever said that around Americans, especially at their age, they would be looked down upon, etc.  It felt really weird to hear that from a kid's mouth who knew what it meant, yet didn't know what it meant.

Welcome to Mexico, where they know all the bad words, and none of the meaning!