Standard vs Slang
EFL learners have difficulty understanding and interacting with native speakers because the nature of native speakers language differ more or less from the artificial language that we, as EFL teachers, use in the classroom. That’s why, it would be a good idea to teach slang to EFL students to bridge the gap between the language of the books that we usually teach and the language of every day life that our learners would be forced to understand and use when facing authentic situations and interacting with native speakers.
The activity
- Ask students whether they have problems understanding conversations in British or American movies.
- Brainstorm the reasons why they may have difficulty fully understanding native speakers language.
- Explain that slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker’s language.
- Give examples of slang language for students to study in groups. (See bellow.)
- Students do a matching exercise to get explanation of the slang vocabulary items in the examples given earlier. (See bellow.)
Examples
- What an awesome sunset today.
- He had to barf because he drank too much alcohol.
- Your ideas about politics are all wet.
- You cannot get a girlfriend if you act dorky.
- Shut up! You are such a big mouth.
- Her ex-boyfriend was dirt / a dirt bag.
- The whole idea was a bust.
- He’s an ace reporter who always gets a good story.
- This is a really cool place to work.
- I need more time to cram for the test.
- If you make another boo boo like that, you won’t have a job.
- He is really a chicken.
- He has a really cushy job.
- Investing in the stock market can be dicey.
- At the wedding he had a flashback of his old girlfriend
- More than twenty companies in the district went bust during the last three months.
- That guy is a zero
- The company received a kickback from the politician during the recent elections
- His salary is thirty grand
- Do you want rice or spuds for dinner?
Matching task
Slang vocabulary | Expalnantion |
---|---|
1. ace | a. great |
2. all wet | b. very good |
3. airhead | c. vomit |
4. boo boo | d. a stupid person |
5. awesome | e. completely wrong |
6. chicken | f. talk too much |
7. big mouth | g. mistake |
8. barf | h. good |
9. cram | i. coward |
10. cool | j. study hard |
11. grand | k. easy |
12. zero | l. risky |
13. flashback | m. awful person |
14. spuds | n. memory |
15. go bust | o. forced to close because it is financially unsuccessful |
16. kickback | p. strangely |
17. dorky | q. money paid illegally for favorable treatment |
18. dirt or dirt bag | r. potatoes |
19. dicey | s. unimportant person |
20. cushy | t. thousand dollars |