Oral English

So, I was conducting a few tiny oral exams with students, just trying to get a feel for which students had basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and which might have cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP.) Basically, BICS is when you can mess around with your friends, play games, pay a simple bill at the bank, pick up babes: at the CALP level, you're able to listen to a lecture in the foreign language, take notes on it, and even write coherently on the topic. I asked some basic questions, but ones which are NOT taught at New Oriental or whatever cram school my students attend during the break. Among them, "What's your favorite day of the year?" "What do you like to cook?" "How did you spend last weekend?" and "Do you prefer to communicate with your friends in person, or by email and text messages?"

Responses: "I like the Fist of Oprah because it is very funny and we can do tricks." Translation: I like the First of April, it's fun and we can play tricks on one another. 

"I really like Spoiled Eggs. I am a very good cooker Spoiled Eggs." Translation: I really like boiled eggs. I cook them well."

"I curled up with my thing." Translation: I curled up with a magazine. 
"I like common mouth to mouth." Translation: I like to communicate face-to-face.

My translations are accurate as I had the luxury of stopping the student and asking what they meant. English is a notoriously difficult language to master, and goodness knows when I speak Chinese I too make a ton of funny mistakes, such as the time I was walking down the street with my in laws. It began to sprinkle and I said in amazement, "Xia xue le!" which means, it's snowing.Only I meant to say, "It's raining." But, pronounced as it was by my thick foreign tongue, it meant "My period just started and I'm not pregnant, whew!" My mother-in-law burst into laughter and had to collapse on a park bench to collect herself while my father-in-law marched ahead, stony-faced. Mother-in-law then proceeded to mime to me what I had said, complete with obvious gestures and facial expressions, and I pretty much gave up using Chinese with them at that point. (Plus I divorced their son a week later, so that didn't help the relationship much.)