My Larcenous Students

In the evenings I teach two classes of teenagers. The class is 'Speaking,' that means I have to try to get them to talk in English. This is actually more difficult that it sounds!!!!! Never thought I would have to say I was having trouble getting kids to talk, lol! Normally it is the opposite problem - getting them to be quiet!!!!! However the students don't want to look silly in front of their friends so getting them to talk requires some extreme measures at times.

One of my tactics is to make them tell me stories. They particularly like Fortunately/Unfortunately stories, this is where they are divided into two teams. They make up a situation and a goal for each team and they have to add alternate sentences to the story. All the Fortunately teams sentences have to start with "Fortunately ..." and the Unfortunately teams sentences have to start with "Unfortunately ..." There is only two rules, you can't contradict anything that has gone before in the story and you can't kill the 'hero' of the story. The student love it because they get to tell stories and they can score points off each other. I tell them not to worry about their grammar (they have a grammar class for that - I'd rather that they said 20 imperfect sentences that 1 perfect sentence!) and I smooth out the sentences as I write them up on the board.

Here is one of the recent stories - having some worries about my students morals after this one ... (I try not to censor or judge their stories as I don't want them to stop talking but I'm thinking I'm going to have to add some morals and ethics for this class!!)

Sally's Bill

Sally sat down in the restaurant, she ordered a meal. It was very delicious. She eyed the door. When would she be able to leave without paying?

• The 'Fortunately' team is trying to make Sally pay for her meal.
• The 'Unfortunately' team is trying to let Sally get away with out paying.

Unfortunately the handsome manager knew her.

Fortunately he could not see her because he was blind.

Unfortunately all the other guests had already left the restaurant so the waiters were all watching to see when Sally would go.

Fortunately the food was very bad and just outside the door all of the guests got stomach aches and hurried back inside to use the bathroom.

Unfortunately the bathrooms were big so all the guests fitted in them leaving Sally alone in the dining room again.

Fortunately the chef made a mistake and a fire started in the kitchen.

Unfortunately one of the waiters was an ex-fireman with magical powers and he put out the fire with his 'water shooting finger.'

Fortunately Sally could run faster than Usine Bolt (the current fastest man in the world - from recent World Running Competitions held in South Korea) so she ran out of the restaurant without paying.

Unfortunately she fell over.

Fortunately she turned invisible so she stole some other persons wallet and used the money in it to pay for the meal.

• At this point the class was over, however the students had one more detail to add to the story...

Sally married the blind handsome manager and they lived happily ever after - since it didn't worry the blind handsome manager that she was invisible and Sally never tried to sneak out of the restaurant again.


Technically the Fortunately team won the game seeing as Sally paid for the meal - but it would seem that they are just as larcenous as the Unfortunately team!!!