My Students Learn How to Mingle

I heard about this activity from another American teacher. The most important thing is to not tell the students about the "scary" part until it happens.

Start out slowly. simple, passive reading. A handout. These are Real Dating Advertisements, I tell my students. People really do this in America - they will put an ad in the newspaper or on a website to try to find a girlfriend or boyfriend.

I tell them to read them to get an idea of what they sound like. Some read silently, and others read out loud. After a bit, I announce, "YOU are going to write your own dating advertisement. But this is NOT FOR YOU, it's some new person." I write this on the chalkboard, just so there's no confusion. They're better at reading English than listening to it, and I want to make sure they don't write about themselves. It will be all the more awkward if they do, but if it's fantasy anyway then they should be able to cope with what will happen later. I do a little example of what I want: a name, age, job, hometown, hobbies, what you are like, what you are looking for, 3 questions you would ask someone to find out if you like them.

Then I make my first crazy move, which I hope doesn't show my hand: I tell them I need an equal amount of girl ads and boy ads. If there are too many girls in the class, I tell some of them to write for boys. They have no problem with this. If there are too many boys in the class, I tell some of them to write for girls. This gets lot of laughter, but as long as I make a bunch of them do it they don't feel targeted. They write away and I pace around, spying on their progress.

When the majority of the class appears to be finished writing, the madness can finally begin.

"Ok, now I want everyone to stand up and come to the front of the room."

Blank stares. I keep talking.

"You need to bring your paper and a pen or pencil. The paper where you wrote about your person. Stand up and come here. Come to the front by me."

Nothing. Then one students asks, "Everybody?"

Me: "Yes, everybody. All of you."

Still no one moves. Then: "When?"

Me: "Right now. Stand up and come here right now. All of you. Stand up. Come here. Right now!"

I'm vigorously motioning to stand. Finally, one or two students get some courage and they stand up. A few follow suit, but others still look confused. I usually have to yell something like "You! in the back! come here! now!" I refuse to explain until everyone is crowded around in the front, because if they hear what we're going to do first, they would probably never stand up.

"You must pretend to be your person. Act like you are really the person that you wrote about. You all wrote some questions to ask a possible boyfriend or girlfriend. I want you to find someone to talk to and ask them your three questions. If you think they would be a good boyfriend or girlfriend for your person, write their name on your paper. You MUST get at least FIVE names. More is better. At least five names! Go!"

This activity has varying levels of success. At the beginning the students pretty much seek out classmates of the same gender. Girls who are being boys for the activity are very popular, because the real girls do not want to talk to real boys. Even less do the real boys want to talk to the real girls. If it is a pretty mixed-gender class, the girls usually all talk to each other in a tight pack, and the boys stand off to one side and kind of talk to each other or don't do anything. If there are only a few boys in the class they tend to be more gregarious, I guess because they are used to talking to girls. If there are only boys in the class, which is true of a couple of my classes, they can get pretty wild. There are always some people running around yelling "I'm a boy! Who's a girl?" I try to find pockets of inactivity and urge them, "Go! Find a girl!" or "The boys are over there! Go talk to them!"

With a little urging they finally start to really mingle.