More than Words

Teaching English conversation has a lot to do with words. Words are important. They are like the pieces of a mosaic you get given, and while you are encouraged by convention and habit to put them together in certain ways, you are free to create your very own picture. With your words, you can show people your world, or hide it, mesmerise them, scare them away, capture their hearts with love or hatred, destroy them, or build them up. Words are powerful. But to become powerful, they need to be used with skill. And behind every skill, there must be motivation. There must be a purpose. Otherwise time would be too precious to be used up acquiring it.
My students already have varying personal motivations and purposes to study English-otherwise they would not spend time and money at our school-but I try to create immediate motivation for them to talk in every class. They must want to talk. That way, they will talk. And that way, they will learn.
The song whose title I have borrowed for today's heading emphasises that words are there to express content and lose their meaning if their content is lost. "Don't just tell me you love me," the singer says, "Show me!" So it is content we are looking for. In this spirit, I keep looking for my students' contents. But of course in my case, the goal is not shutting them up to find this content, it is making them speak to find it. And finding it to make them speak.
Today, H-san brought his guitar. Little did I realise when I gave him that homework that carrying a guitar around town on his way to and from work was extremely embarrassing for him because apparently salary men in business suits with guitars are not very highly thought of.
But when he and T-san tell me about this in class, it is too late. He has already taken this feat upon himself, and I am so grateful he has. Because T-san and I get to hear some very skilful, mood-lifting and heart-warming guitar play. T-san is thoroughy impressed to hear her salary man classmate play the Blues. And then, More than Words.
Together, we sing the song Skip the Sweet Potato Chip wrote for Apple, borrowing the melody from More than Words and the grammar item from textbook Sprint 7y lesson 17: Complex Questions.

"Apple do you love me? Or do you love your red skin more than me? Do you want to shove me down from the tree? Love, are you dumping me in the deep sea? Are you waiting to get rid of me? Cause I just heard a rumbling rumour in the sea. Are you using me o Apple? Do you love me? Cause I dont really know. What do you say? Will you love me if I play apple pie crust every day? Will you stay or go away?"

We enjoy the singing and playing and plan another concert for next week. H-san can store his guitar in the school until then. That way, he doesn't have to carry it around, and I can sneak into the storage room in between classes if I'm ever lucky enough to find some time, and practise a little myself.

T-san has brought us a DVD that shows her skydiving in New Zealand, but our school DVD player in the lobby is broken, and I tell her I will bring my laptop next week, so we can watch some of her contents as well. I have a feeling it might go well with her descriptions of climbing rocks, gym walls, and the roots of giant trees.

At the end of today's class, we all create our personal fantasy islands. T-san's island is called Wild Life Island. The capital in the south of the island is Lion's Rock, the second city, south of the capital is Elephant Grass. H-san's island is named Beer Island and immediately makes all of us want to go. His capital is Hops, located in the North of Beer Island, the second city, White Head, lies about 100 km southwest of Hops. So in the end, we have a lot of new words.
But we don't just have words. I have a feeling, and it is a good feeling, that we have more.
More than words.