Do you know the word “smirk”?
It’s what I usually do when someone takes my picture.
Normal people smile.
I smirk.
Maybe it’s because I’m not comforable having my picture taken.
But whatever the reason, the result is I have a bunch of photos on my blog and facebook page that look…well, not so professional.
So Sunday afternoon I decided to try the smile thing again and I visited a teacher I know in Prague who also does photography.
And while she was taking my picture and I was trying to make myself laugh, her flatmate was in the next room giving an English lesson to a child.
In China!
Yes, these are amazing times.
But what wasn’t amazing was the lesson.
“Elephant!”
“Tiger!”
“Giraffe!”
These were the words she was teaching the kid through skype.
Of course, I was wondering, “Why does a five-year-old kid in Bejing need to talk about exotic animals? Is she going hunting? Applying for a job at the zoo?
Let’s have a closer look at how useful these words are.
According to www.wordcount.org, Elephant is the 7,538th most used word in the English language.
Do you think this kid knows the 7,537 words that are more common than elephant?
I doubt it.
She probably doesn’t even know the first 100.
So why is she jumping past thousands and thousands of more useful words?
(looking at the floor, slowly shaking my head) I don’t know …I just don’t know.
English is valuable.
Skype is a miracle.
Lessons are good.
But without a strategy, you’re probably wasting your time.