Learning is essentially going from a state of ignorance to one of knowledge. We are ignorant of something and through the process of learning we come to understand the thing. Most human beings grasp the process of learning as such, nonetheless I have come across, and continue to, some people for whom the process of learning can never really commence because “I don’t understand.” Of course you don’t understand, if you understood you wouldn’t be sitting in my classroom. Once again I have one of these students in my class. It’s a beginner’s class and there are some different ability levels in the class, but they are all more or less false beginners per the ESL terminology, meaning they have had some exposure to English, the alphabet and have a passive vocabulary of several hundred words. In any case, this one lady almost immediately starts in with ‘I don’t understand’ in Thai. I was trying to convey the basic How are you? greeting. It doesn’t matter that the student instantaneously grasps the concept. Over the passage of time (every time we meet and start the class) they will come to understand that they are using a greeting. For the purposes of teaching using the direct method (only using the target language) it is enough to teach the appropriate responses to the question. To the uninitiated there are only several acceptable ways to answer what is really more of greeting than a question – I’m good, thanks. You? / Not bad, yourself?/ etc.. So again, it’s just a question of retaining at least one response. As we went around the room everyone did fine with the concept, except for Ms. Mai Khao Jai (don’t understand). I have encountered the same thing in Japan and will not pin this trait on any one nationality. I find it more laughable than anything else. Imagine I ask a physics professor to explain to me the theory of relativity. The first thing s/he does is to write E=MC2 on the board. As soon as s/he finishes, but before the explanation begins, I raise my hand and say “I don’t understand”. That is essentially what this type of language learner is doing. Exasperating.