Let's talk about GRILS A bit of a background, I'm currently teaching summer school to mostly International students from Vietnam, Korea and China. So yesterday afternoon, we had a few students leave early and had a smaller crowd. I asked them what they wanted to learn (just for something different) and here's how the conversation went: Student 1: GRI Me: Pardon? Student 1: TRIHH Me: Er, can you spell that? Student 1: J-R-L Me: Er, G-R-L? Student 1: Noo! G-R-I-L Me: Gril? Student 1: Um... yes GRIL Me: What's a Gril? Student 1: GRIL Me: You mean like a BBQ grill? Student 1: No ... laughs. Me: Okay, why don't you write it on the board for me? Student 1: Mmm... okay! (student goes up and writes the word GIRLS) Me: Ohhh! GIRLS! Students: Laughing Me: You want to talk about GIRLS? Student 1: YES! GIRLS! Me: Okay, we can do that. At least we have one girl in the class. Student 1: Yes, she's pretty! So, I got the students to describe the GRIL (sic) in the class. A few words were bandied around like long hair, pretty, beautiful and then a facetious student threw in words like noisy, cries a lot and lazy. So I said, let's just focus on the positive things about a girl. And that led on to me having each student come to the front of the class and the students got a chance to physically describe each student. It started off pretty slow and then it snowballed as they gained momentum culminating in their description of me. We then moved on to talk about personalities with a focus on the difference between introverted and extroverted personalities and asking which the students felt they were. Exactly one half of the students were introverted and extroverted respectively. I then informed them that many teachers were introverted people who can be selective extroverts. That drew some puzzled looks. I explained that we're generally quiet, shy and retiring but when we're in a class our alter-ego, the said extrovert can manifest itself. The next area we looked at was their individual characteristics. It seemed to me that young Asian students are not used to being paid a compliment and are often unsure how to respond while here in the West we just say 'thank you' and move on. It was nice to see them pay each other a compliment and also to write good and positive things about themselves. The students then described their personality and characteristics and we went through them together. I like to encourage them whenever possible because encouragement always helps.