Shhh...Students Might Learn Something. Just Don't Let Them Know...

For the second week of lessons I've been doing a short unit on travel, mainly because I could connect it thematically to my initial lesson, which was a self-introduction that included pictures of places I'd traveled to.  I had an activity planned whereby students would first write out a plan for a vacation they wanted to take (in English), and would then practice conversation talking about their trip, first one-on-one and eventually to the whole class.  As an extra incentive, I thought I might offer students a chance to vote on which vacation they liked best and award that student a peice of candy or two.

Well, for the first three days, after going over the vocabulary and brainstorming ideas with students about a vacation, I explained to them that I had a worksheet for them to describe their dream vacation.  I didn't explain any further than that, mostly because its already hard to get one's point across with the student's limited English, and I didn't want to confuse them by giving them all the detail up front.  Big mistake.  Even though it was a substantially creative activity, students heard the word "worksheet" and they moaned.  Most of the students did it, maybe 2/3rds, but only grudgingly.

So, on Friday I decided to try a different approach.  I started off saying that we were going to have a competition to see who can come up with the best or most creative vacation, and whoever won would get a couple peices of candy.  I carefully never used the word "worksheet" in my explanation of the process.  You'd think I promised to pay for their vacation.  Every student, save maybe one in my second class on Friday, dived right in and was toiling away on their worksheet with seconds.