No Man is an Island

I have touched a little on the language barrier and how teaching my students sometimes requires me to explain non-chemistry vocab. Well over the past few weeks I have become very good at guessing what words will prove difficult, yet sometimes I still get surprised when a student asks "Teacher what does that word mean?"
Here are some of the words I have been asked to explain:
room temperature, explosively, pattern, rigid, trivia, x-rays, hypothesis
(for whatever reason these are the words that I remember the most)

Now I want to give by far the best example I have encountered yet.
The set up:
I had my students coming up to the board and writing the answers to the homework. One of the students wrote the wrong answer and the class laughed. I then told them that that was not nice and everyone makes mistakes so we should help her, who wants to come up and help her fix her mistake. I further went on to say even I make mistakes(students say teacher you did not write what you said on the board..aka sometimes I leave words out by accident)

The comment that had me "whoa":
A student raises their hand and I call on them. She says, "no man is an island." I say where did you hear that. She replies by starting to explain to me what the phrase means. I inform her that yes I know what no man is an island means, I want to know where she heard it..she does not remember

The comment that sealed the deal:
About 5 minutes later I then had a student ask me what the word 'want' means.

The Deal, aka why this is the best example:
This example shows the disparity of knowledge. At times the students have an extensive vocabulary, yet the next minute they do not know what I would consider to be 'basic' english.
Meaning, I would consider the verb to want to be pretty basic, while the phrase no man is an island a little advanced. What this means is that one has to constantly ask the students if they know a word, which garners me, a yes we know that(as though how could I think they didn't)..yet one is still constantly surprised when a student then asks for a meaning and I ask if anyone in the class knows the word, and they don't..it boggles the mind.
But hey I guess it keeps me on my toes, right? :)