I was trying to help a missionary kid who has been away from my country for eight years. We worked at grammar some. I tried some word games. While I was telling my son and a friend from church about her, both of those English majors told me that English is more than comprehension, grammar, composition, pronunciation, vocabulary, tenses, ... They brought in accent, body language, local usage, the differing level of let's say between reading and speaking ...
Since I have access to this teenager for a few months, at most I can see her only once a week; therefore I realize the best job I can do is to instill in her a desire to excel. This week I have been away a few days. There was hardly any time to prepare any serious lesson. We talked about body language and how it differs from country to country.
The first example I gave her: what my room mate pointed out the first week of my first semester in USA. My room mate was a very out-spoken young lady. She touched on many topics that were taboos in my country. While I was rather serious even when I was college age, I found myself giggling when I became embarrass. She was very upset with that, as she claimed that those were not funny topics and she was not trying to be amusing. There after, I have to consciously keep a straight face and to tell her in words that she was venturing into my taboo topics and that I have no response to such topics until I can become comfortable with her.
My informal student's assignment for the week is to watch any video program and find me three differences between the body language of any two countries.
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