It is really considered bad form for a teacher to laugh at a student’s mistake. In an English classroom we will often teach the polite way to ask for something and receive it. For example, “May I have a glass of water?” to which the response is “Here you are”. Then you hand the person a glass of water. In Chinese the question is like “Qing gei wo yi bei shui.” (“May I have a glass of water?”), to which the answer is “Gei Ni.” (literally “give you”, pronounced “gay knee”) as you hand him the glass of water.

So I recently heard of a teacher that lost it and cracked up when the student mixed up his Chinese and English — called Chiinglish. The student mixed up “Gei ni” and “Here you are”. It came out: “Gay you are.”

(Sorry, I guess you have to be an English teacher in China to appreciate this one.)