Give a student a chance to act out a role and he might just answer ALL the questions on page 28.
There is a well known saying by many teachers in the EFL classrooms in Israel not to smile before Chanukah. This has implications for both classroom management and keeping the tone of the lessons straight, which I agree with for the most part, but I think it is important to bend a little.
For the last lesson of the week, I read to my remedial reading class of seventeen students a story about a bull and a mule who stole an old man's peanuts and he ran after them through the field and then got tired and stopped running and the bull and mule got away. But instead of the usual "answer the questions on page 28" I said in Hebrew "I need three volunteers." Three kids half my height immediately surrounded me (they are so eager to help) and I gave them their roles.
They acted out the roles of the story so perfectly. At one point of the story, one student said in English, "I'm running, I'm running!" and we all laughed. And when he got tired, he said, "I'm not running!" Mind you, this is not so easy for an EFL student who was in despair by his low placement test scores which put him in my remedial reading class. At one point I found myself running with them. Afterwards they answered the questions.
Judging from this small case scenario, such students need to be motivated to read if it means not smiling two weeks before Chanukah.
