Hooked on Phonics

This likely won't be nearly as humorous to you as it was to me, but I thought it was blog-worthy, especially as I haven't posted anything in many days.

We have been introducing some phonics to the 7th graders recently, working on a few letters at a time at the beginning of class. I say a letter, the sound it makes (with exaggeration), a couple example words, and have the students repeat everything. The target sentence goes something like this: "M says muh, muh moon."

Today, the students were finishing up their cleaning duties in the teacher office when three 7th-grade boys got my attention. Adapting phonics to Japanese, and excusing themselves properly from the room as they left, they said loudly "Mr. Michael, S says ssssssss, sssssssss, shitsurei shimashita!"