[susan53]

Quote Happy Camper

This works best for younger students and almost certainly not with adults!!

Not necessarily. I'd happily do it with adults in quite a lot of circumstances. Often it's not what you do but how you do it that makes the difference. It will always depend on exactly who your students are - and it's not age or status that makes the difference. I can think of 50 year old high ranking executives that I would try it with, and twenty-something junior managers who I wouldn't. More important is the mix of personalities within the class and your own relationship with them - I might get away with it better with the high-ranking execs because they're fairly open people, I'm the same age and we have developed a relationship of mutual respect for each other's professional competence. In other circumstances I might think twice. But it's certainly not only age - every so often you meet a class that would jump out of a six storey window if you say it will improve their English. With any activity you always need to assess the people in front of you, your own credibility, and their ultimate realisation of the usefulness of what you're doing. With adults, if you do a couple of crazy things which, after the initial shock, they realise helped their learning, they'll follow you anywhere.