A Universal Language

No, I am not talking about music this time. I am talking about laughter. That simple act that makes everything feel better for a moment of time.

Thursday was the first day that some of my first year students saw the silly side of Miss Amanda. As usual, we were playing another pronunciation/quiz game, which they absolutely love. They are either very eager and happy to learn how to say certain words correctly, or they are just laughing at how funny I sound standing at the front of the room placing emphasis on certain letters/syllables in a word. I'm pretty sure it's the latter.
To give you an idea of how the game goes...think of a pyramid. At the top of that pyramid you have two words that sound the same, ball and fall. Next you have two branches from each of those words and off of each branch there are two more words that sound the same, she and sea. Your first line (A) of the pyramid is ball, fall and your second line (B) is she, sea, she, sea and you continue in this pattern all the way to the base of the pyramid, line 'I' where you have ten branches with the two words win and wing alternating. As the game/quiz goes, I say one word in each line, following a certain route down the pyramid. The students listen intently to try and figure out which word I am saying. When I finish I say "raise your hand if you have #1(branch) as your final answer....I do this all the way to #10 and then I ask students at random to tell me the word they circled for each line until they realize which word they should have circled at the end. By now you may be confused, hahah sorry I tried to explain as best I could.
So now comes the funny part, going through the answers and differentiating between the two words used in each line. I say ball, fall...sea(emphasizing the ssssssss at the beginning) and she(emphasizing the shhhhhhhhh at the beginning). The students love this and burst out into laughter EVERY time we play a game like this. This is when they saw the "Amanda who loves to laugh" part of me. This little picky head boy, Teppei(Tep-ay-ee), okay his head isn't picky, but he is the most genki (energetic, hyper, etc.) student in this class. I can't remember what it is that he did, but all I know is one minute I had it together and the next I was laughing hysterically at the front of the room. No matter how I tried, I could NOT stop laughing. I laughed for about 2 minutes (pausing the lesson) with tears streaming down my face. Then I said "OK, OK I'm OK", started to read some more words from the board and there it was again, another bout of laughter for a good 5 minutes. Mind you, my students loved this and they were laughing themselves silly as well. In my head, I couldn't stop thinking that my team teacher, Suzuki-sensei was probably thinking I had lost my mind, but when I looked up, lo and behold he was laughing too. It felt so good to let go and laugh with them. After I caught my composure I couldn't help but giggle to myself as I looked on at their quirky facial expressions anticipating my next lapse. I ended my lesson on a high note. I guess my silliness inspired more students to come and talk to me using their conversation card, because after the lesson 5 students ran up to me. This continued throughout the day and at lunch I had an additional 13 cards in my hand. So there it is, another universal language.