Lying on my back on red brick paving still warm from the 35 degree heat of today, I gaze at the midnight sky, blanketed in cotton wool clouds. The breeze from the east is steady above, and as I watch the blanket is pulled back like a curtain rising, and an ocean of sky is revealed, stars innocent in their sudden nakedness.
My mind slowly clears.
I remember an incident in my adult English class today, in which the Saudi student told a Korean student that he didn't drink alcohol - not at all. Sung Min looked slightly incredulous. "Are you Muslim?", I asked, partly by way of explanation to Sung Min. Abdul replied that he was. Sung Min's eyes showed new understanding. "You don't eat beef?" he ventured, attempting to cross the world. "Pork," Abdul corrected. Sung Min scribbled two words in his notebook in Korean, and at Abdul's questioning he translated "Muslim - Pork".
It was a small thing, a tiny point of understanding, but it contained the essence of what I love about language teaching. Two students from different worlds, living in a third - sharing their cultures, taking the risk of being wrong, learning about people and countries not from a book but from real connection. This is the heart of engaging with others in a second language, and this too is the heart of what is really important for any communication - honesty, a willingness to learn from the other, a willingness to be wrong.
