Nothing beats laughing.
Jokes are not Universal,
but laughter sure is.
Laughter, they say, is the best medicine. Today I laughed a lot. I planned a funny lesson with my students, where they could practice a dialogue about their daily commute, but substitute in different kind of vehicles. This meant that the students would have to say how they actually commuted, then after say that they came to school by plane every day, or by roller skates, or by rickshaw, and so on, and then adjust the amount of time accordingly. I wasn't sure all the students would fully get the humour in it, but they all seemed to really embrace it. It was very funny. Students were talking about their difficult commutes through Tokyo on camels and unicycles. The nicest part of it all was that the students were making me laugh, something they couldn't do, at least intentionally, when I first met them 6 weeks ago. I've really gotten to know them well and they have definitely improved their speaking ability. It's fantastic.
In my free speaking period I organized a debate about whether or not soccer is the best sport in the world on account of the World Cup. We had two sides and on the side that was supposed to argue that soccer was indeed the greatest sport on the planet, were two very funny higher level students that come for that period. One of them I call Wolverine, because he introduces himself as Wolverine, his favourite of the X-Men. It's quite a funny schtick, which has led to him calling me Captain, after he said I looked like Captain America and I told him no way, I was maybe Captain Canuck but never Captain America. He likes to walk into my room and shout "Hi Captain!" His partner in the debate, and good friend, is a huge soccer fan. So, to annoy him, he decided to argue during their planning stages that curling was actually the greatest sport in the world. His reasoning was that if you have a physical problem you'll probably lose at soccer, but you could still win at curling. When his partner said there were no famous curlers he started making up names of curlers and saying how they were legends. They said a lot of other funny stuff too. They make a perfect straight man and wise guy combo.
Even though the whole day was funny, my typically hilarious last class of the day was still the funniest. My 62-year-old student had everybody in hysterics. For the first part of the lesson, students had to name different types of transportation, not knowing what they would use the vocabulary for. I instructed them to start with the easy ones, car, train bicycle and then go for more interesting forms and vehicles. His group said car first and he immediately replied with "SKIS!" as though they were the second most common way to commute in Tokyo. Everybody was amused. Then he wanted to name another form of transportation but couldn't think of the word in English. He did an elaborate mime routine, where I thought he was trying to look like he was vomiting, before someone guessed that he was talking about an elephant. They were right, but his actions were unlike any elephant I've ever seen. The vomit motion was to depict the elephant's trunk by the way. Finally, everyone including myself lost their mind laughing when we began our conversations. The students were supposed to begin saying the truth, that they commuted by train, or bus and train, and then change to funny answers for subsequent conversations. Our resident comedian however told his partner right off the bat that he commuted "BY SPACE SHIP!" and thanks to his big voice everyone heard. He added "IT TAKES ONE MINUTE! BUT VERY EXPENSIVE!" He's such a crazy funny old rich man that it actually was in some ways believable. It was a hilarious moment I'll never forget.
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