The language barrier

Even though I have been studying German for a couple of years now, it has been a self guided course and based on tourist German, not real life language usage. Being immersed in the culture is definitely making my German skills better, but I am also realizing that I don't need to talk as much as I normally do when I rehearse in English. Simple instructions are often just as good as a long narrative. My students here are performing more during each class than my students in Centennial normally would simply because I am talking about half as much. I have always known that, in a music rehearsal, talking is bad and playing is good, but I now realize this truth in a completely different context.