The same look suddenly spreads across their face, the same look that has surely spread across mine so many times before.

So familiar, it is: a sort of wide, glassy-eyed gaze, a mix between shock, horror and helplessness.

"I don't understand a word you're saying," it says.

It flattens one's face and exposes one's weaknesses. It makes one vulnerable. And try as one might to fight through it, to continue on with the conversation as though nothing has happened, both the listener and the speaker felt the little speed bump in the dialogue, and have to begin to restructure their discourse.

I've felt it before, many times.

It's awkward as hell.

The look brings with it silence, a pause, and then feelings of humiliation and guilt, with a little bit of shame and self-doubt mixed in--not to mention that incredible dose of awkwardness.

It shakes your confidence, it really does, and if not dealt with properly, can effectively ruin a conversation.

The only way to combat such an awful roadblock is to smile, nod, and pretend to understand every single word coming out of the speaker's mouth. Your face no longer says, "I'm helpless and hopeless," but rather, "I get it, keep talking, I'm just as fluent as you."

Some of my students have mastered this ability already, for better, or worse.

After interviewing me and writing short summaries of what they had learned, I've come to find out that not only do I have two little sisters, but my cat died last year, I'm 26-years-old, and I'm apparently planning a trip to Nagano in March to go snowboarding.

Of course, when we were talking I was under the impression they had understood everything.

Not so, although one little girl did point out that my trademark is "dreadlocks," and another boy managed to gather from our interview that I hate President Bush.

But just incase any of these interviews are ever published, I need to set the record straight: despite what a certain 13-year-old Japanese junior high boy may tell you, I am not a fan of Metallica, neither their new work, nor their old.