Teaching > Theory and Practice

Encouraging 'silliness' in the classroom

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Ammos Sack:
Hi. I was just looking for some feedback on the following:

A lot of the English that ends up getting used in my classes is a bit 'silly' shall we say. For example when I did a lesson about giving advice, I gave them a problem like "I have a difficult test tomorrow" and asked for suggestions. A lot of what I got back was stuff like "Kill your teacher" or "give up".

Another example would be when I did a lesson where they were encouraged to write "free dialogue". Most of it consisted of "you are gay" and "you are ugly" and that kind of thing.

Anyway I find most of this pretty funny. It's not disrespecting me and I feel that as long as the students are engaged in speaking English then that's the main goal. My co-teacher however disagrees and thinks that sort of behaviour should be punished.

Any thoughts?

OneVurfedGwrx:
I think that it's one of those you have to judge situation by situation.  Last year, some of my 5th Graders were reasonably creative and would write silly, but appropriate, sentences.  I liked them to be more creative than just rote-copying whatever the dialogue they had before taught them.  One example was a picture of a car, "What  nice car!"  "Let's steal it!"

I'm sure there are situations where you don't encourage it too though. 

fishead:
It's a fairly subjective subject some people will argue either side according to their own personal teaching phylosophy. One thing that most agree you should not bore them and you should make yourself a object of ridicule.

SBracken:
I'd judge it based on your students' attitudes. I've had students say 'Teacher is very stupid!' and had students appropriately answer a class question (ie 'What time is it?' 'It's one fifteen, Teacher.') Depending on the situation, the latter student could be a brat, and the former just being relaxed. If they *treat* you, your class, and their classmates with respect, then whatever they're saying (eg 'kill your teacher') is probably just for the lulz.

To mention though, I usually find that my for-the-lulz-but-still-respectful-and-appropriate kids are middle schoolers, and the sarcastic cranky ones are high schoolers. Usually.

I love advice lessons. one of my favorites was 'I love a boy but he doesn't love me. What should I do?' This one kid pipes right up- "I think you should hit boy!"  :laugh:

nathanpollard:
I think this is an interesting topic to discuss; I actively encourage my students to "think outside the box" when doing the speaking chapter at elementary school; it gives them the opportunity to go beyond the parroting they are so used to and think creatively. Obviously you will always get the phrases "I will kill you", "You are crazy" and "I'm your father" but often you will get some extremely creative answers and the lower level students can also participate.

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