Today was Stephannie's first day with her new year 1 & 2 class. Though she has found to be a steep learning curve she has discovered that English as she knew it in Canada is not English in England.
You see Stephannie was doing an active with the class where they had to build things will Lego (Yay, as we know how we love Lego). She asked the students to tidy up at the end of the lesson by saying, "Please put the Lego in the bin closet to you table."
Cries of shock and horror rang out across the class. When one student piped up and asked, "Why do we have to put the Legos in the bin?"
Upon seeing what she had done Stephannie explained that in Canada a box or tray can be called a bin, and that we was asking them to clean up and not toss away the Lego.
Funny thing is she knew that and had called the trash can a bin for most of the day, but when she was not over thinking how to speak British English she shocked her new students thinking that thely had to toss out their Legos. (Yes the British seem to love to add "s" to many words...Brendan says that English started the Language but they also BREAK all the rules too).
English 101 for Canadians
bin = garbage can
Check out our The Jargon File for more things that are English but not English Canadian
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