One of the students wanted to know why he had to complete a sentence in English when he was asking something. He even complained to his manager that he had given the right answer and that that should have been sufficient. His boss told him that was part of communicating properly and then presented him with a situation. He asked him how he would feel if he would feel cut off from a conversation if his friend would only answer a question affirmatively or negatively. The person then realized that his manager had a point; unless he would continue talking his friend would sooner or later say something like are you interested in speaking to me?
Another person would freeze in class when he was spoken to sternly and then the teacher realized that he could ease up on the student or look at trying to communicate with him differently. The student soon found that out that he could differentiate between the tonality of being instructed in class and the tone that he received at home from older brothers and parents that would be telling him what to do. He was speaking to teacher through body language that he had learned at home and caused him to tense up any time he received a stern instruction.
Both students later appreciated the way in which they learned to think in another language instead of just going through the motions as if it was being absorbed. They had not been exposed properly as children either because there was an absence of English contact or their parents were adverse towards practicing the language at home or both. They would both improve their understanding at the level of being able to follow instructions and reply to queries using basic English but they had to discover that the learning process was more complex; learning meant knowing how to learn. They knew how to recognize their weaknesses and build on their strengths.
