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Pick some possible
answers and write them on the board, scaled from good to bad (see
right). Explain that OK is a neutral answer, neither good nor
bad. Starting from OK, have them repeat after you as you move up
the scale. Act out the emotion as you say the word. Then go down the
scale, getting more and more depressed as you go!
Demonstrate a greeting with the teacher, and then walk around and
pick out a student or two. Ask them "How are you?" and have
them choose one of the answers. Do it with 5 or 6 students. Make
sure they don't answer "fine".
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Hopefully, some of them
will have been answering "great", "terrific",
"awful", etc. Now explain to them that what you have been
doing are still not quite normal English greetings. In
English, when someone answers that they are very good or very bad,
you usually ask them "Why?". In fact, they want you to ask
why! If they didn't want you to ask, they would have answered
"good", "OK" or "fine".
Explain that, in fact, when someone answers "I'm fine, thank
you", it generally means that they don't want to talk to you. In
effect, it's a conversation killer! You and the JTE can demonstrate
this by having one of you act as some unlikable character trying
to start up a conversation with the other.
Next, (returning to your normal selves) ask the JTE how he/she is.
She/he answers "terrific", "terrible", or some such
thing, and then you ask "Why? What happened?".
By now the students should be catching on to the nuances of the
various answers. If not, do a few more demonstrations and make a few
more explanations about choosing your answers.
Now, you and the JTE can walk up and down the rows asking each
student "How are you?" and hopefully getting a truly
original (if not truthful) answer.
As a final point, if you are required to do a classroom greeting at
the start of class, and the students are required to answer in
unison, you may decide that "fine" is an acceptable answer
(since starting a conversation is not the purpose of the greeting).
However, please consider changing the "I'M FINE, THANKYOU!!!"
to "WE'RE FINE, THANKYOU!!". It sounds so much better
that way!
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