Language teachers need to swear to get it right

English teachers who don't teach their foreign students about swearing are not preparing them properly for the real world, says an Auckland researcher.

Dianna Holster-Haidzir, a teacher of English as a second language at Auckland University of Technology, surveyed 80 teachers from 10 central Auckland language schools and found that although they swore themselves and acknowledged taboo speech was common, the "vast majority" were not keen to explain it.

But speaking English well requires an appreciation of its subtleties, says Mrs Holster-Haidzir - including loaded language. Teachers shouldn't "fence off things" or display "linguistic prejudice". "Not only is swearing widely heard and becoming more prevalent - on TV shows, in movies, in hip-hop music, as well as sometimes on the news - but the use of swear words is really complicated," she says.

"Swearing has so many different functions and it is quite complicated to understand. For example, if we said f ... off, that could be interpreted as a serious insult, but it can be used in a joking manner, and people use it to create solidarity, to indicate in-group membership."

There were more than 24,500 foreigners in New Zealand studying the English language or in secondary schools as of December last year, according to Education New Zealand.

Mrs Holster-Haidzir says she is not calling for students to become active swearers, but to have a passive understanding of the vocabulary to prevent them getting into trouble. Migrant parents also need to understand what their children are saying, she adds.

In the research, An Investigation of ESOL Teachers' Attitudes Towards Teaching about Taboo Language in the Second Language Classroom, the reasons teachers gave for not discussing swearing ranged from a belief that students didn't need to be taught, to feeling they would naturally acquire it.

Some said that explaining swear words wasn't the language teacher's role.

Some hadn't even considered it, while others said they would feel inhibited dealing with the subject.

Others said that to explain swearing would offend students, although Mrs Holster-Haidzir points out that swear words don't have great emotional force unless one understands the cultural norms that make them taboo. Some teachers said they were not sure if their school had a policy on explaining profanities.

While the younger participants - 25 to 35-year-old females and men - in the study used swear words more frequently, it was the women over 45 who were most tolerant of teaching students about it.

Mrs Holster-Haidzir doesn't expect that other teachers will rush to support her call, but suggests that those who do offer a class as an optional extra and teach men and women separately.

Mrs Holster-Haidzir, who has taught English as a second language for 13 years in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Indonesia, and now in the AUT School of Languages, did the study for her masters degree.