When I was an ESL teacher, I worked hard to find innovative ways to teach my students, which was always a challenge. I had a small treasure trove of English textbooks and workbooks and games I’d play with my students. Occasionally I’d rent a movie and watch it with some more advanced students, coming up with some exercises to help them pick up vocabulary or useful phrases from the film. One day I rented the movie Die Hard, which they’d asked to see, and we watched it together with the Japanese subtitles. I hadn’t realized the number of swear words that were present in the film, and before I knew it I was teaching a lesson on the various nuances of the “F” word to my students. And yet, it’s funny how neutral such words can become when you’re outside an English speaking country — most Japanese know a few English swear words, but they have no teeth in Japan.
