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I’ll never forget “Noura.”
She was a young woman with a ready smile and a laugh that made the whole room lighter. One day, we were going around the class sharing our favorite foods and drinks. Her turn came. She beamed. And she announced, with total confidence and zero hesitation, that she “loved c*ck.”
She meant Coca Cola.
Now, the class handled it with varying degrees of maturity, partly because not everyone knew that word. I’m not sure what my face said, but I like to think I kept my cool. I calmly corrected her, let everyone else have their turn, gave the class something to work on, and quietly asked Noura to step into the hall. I explained it to her privately because she deserved that dignity. I figured she’d spread the word amongst her female classmates.
She went right back in and told everyone.
It was a pronunciation error, yes. But if she’d known that word existed, if she’d known what it meant, she would have drilled the word “Coke” until she could say it in her sleep. Or not. She was unpredictable.
Vulgar vocabulary isn’t just about knowing how to swear. Sometimes it’s about knowing what NOT to say by accident.
Your Students Already Hear Foul Language
C’mon. You know this. Your adult ESL students are not living in a sealed, expletive-free terrarium. They’re at work, on public transit, watching TV, scrolling social media, and hanging out with native-speaking friends. They hear things. They just don’t always know what those things mean, or whether the person who said it was being friendly or terrible.
“Soo-hyun” once pulled me aside after class to ask, very quietly, if a neighbor was being friendly or threatening when she called her a b*tch. She just could not tell. As it turned out, her neighbor called all her women friends that. But Soo-hyun didn’t know that, and the uncertainty was stressing her out.
Knowing vulgar vocabulary can tell your students a lot. Is this person joking with me? Are they ticked off? Are they being skeevy? Context matters enormously, and your students deserve the tools to read it.
Grammar Lovers, Meet Your New Best Friend: The F-Word
Here’s where it gets really fun. And I say that as someone who, left to my own devices, would consider “dang” to be a strong expletive.
Take “f*ck.” (Deep breath. Here we go.)
That one four-letter word can function as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, an interjection. It takes prefixes. It takes suffixes. It fits into phrasal verbs with the kind of flexibility that impresses linguists. “F*ck up.” “F*ck around.” “F*ck over.” “F*ck with.” The meaning slides in different directions with each one. So do the tone and the grammatical role.
You want your grammar-averse adults to suddenly sit up and pay attention to parts of speech? Give them THAT lesson. I guarantee nobody is going to be lollygagging on their phone when you get to the adverb examples.
I’m not saying you should turn your classroom into a comedy club open mic. I’m saying that when students are sick of the same dry grammar explanations that have been putting people to sleep since the late 1900s (when I started teaching), a little strategic vulgarity can be surprisingly effective. As in, they’ll remember it. As in, the grammar will make itself at home in their brain because the content got their attention from the git-go.
But Wait, I Don’t Even Like Swearing
I hear you! And I say that as a fellow prude.
I am not a person who casually drops expletives. I’m the person who closes the windows before saying anything stronger than “shoot.” I turned shades of red that, to my knowledge, don’t have names yet, every time a student asked me to explain a word I found uncomfortable. (And yeah. A few of them absolutely knew what they were doing. I’m looking at you, “Jin-woo.” ^_^)
But I never, not once, refused to explain a word or expression. Because my students were adults. They were going to come across that language whether I explained it or not. The only question was whether they’d understand it or be left guessing.
If they were going to use vulgar language (and some of them were, let’s not be naive), I wanted them to use it right with the correct connotation and at the right register. With friends over a soccer game? Sure. In a client meeting? A hard no, not that they would NEVER hear such language in important meetings.
Right or wrong, pretending these words don’t exist doesn’t protect your students. It just leaves them less prepared.
Sooo…When and How Do You Teach Vulgar Vocabulary?
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
First off, read your room. Vulgar vocabulary is not appropriate for every group. If you have students from very conservative cultural backgrounds who would be deeply uncomfortable, or if your program includes younger students, adjust accordingly. You know your students. Trust that.
Don’t just put a list on the board because context is everything. Don’t merely define the word either. Explain who uses it, when, with whom, and what the consequences of using it in the wrong situation might be. This is register awareness, and it’s one of the most practical skills you can give an adult student.
Frame it well. “We’re going to look at some informal and vulgar language that you’ll come across as an English speaker” is a lot different from just launching into a string of expletives on a Tuesday morning, however tempting that may be. Set it up and explain why.
Pronunciation absolutely counts. See: “Noura” and the Coca Cola situation. ‘Nuff said.
You don’t have to be comfortable to be effective. Case in point: me. I turned red. My students learned. These two things coexisted just fine.
I made something for this (of course)!
Here’s where I sheepishly admit that this post has a second purpose. (What? You thought it was purely noble and educational? Bless your heart.)
I’ve just started building a line of vulgar vocabulary resources over at my TpT store↗. These are designed specifically for adult ESL classrooms, covering vulgar words and expressions you’ve probably been fielding questions on for years without anything to hand them.
These are not thrown-together word lists. They’re real instructional materials that take the topic seriously because you and your students deserve that. My fingers are crossed that I can find the people who need these.
I’ll link them below. Take a look and see if they would be a good fit for your group.
The Bottom Line
Your adult students live in the real world, and the real world has vulgar language in it. Ignoring that doesn’t make your classroom safer or more professional. It just makes your students less equipped. You don’t have to love the content to teach it well. And if you go red in the process? Well, your students will probably find it endearing.
That’s it from me. See you in the next post!
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Vulgar Vocabulary | Sh*t Expressions Activity Pack #1
