Find the Fun

I've envisaged this blog as many things at one point or another: a balm for those suffering from Post-Year-Abroad blues; a very public diary; the thing which finally catapults me to stardom and allows me to rub elbows with the finest; but today it's going to serve as an advice column for others teaching English abroad.
I had a moment of teaching triumph last week. One of my fellow profs asked me to prepare a lesson on Britain/British stereotypes, and I didn't spend long enough on it: what I'd prepared was dull and staid and mainly revolved watching this news report on French stereotypes of the British vs. British stereotypes of the French:

If you watch the above video, you may notice that it'd be very difficult to understand if you were a second language English speaker. Also, that it's not really news and that it contains Gyles Brandreth and so is terrible. My colleague rightly called me up on it, and said that this wasn't what he wanted or, more importantly, had asked for. He told me that I was being too much like a lecturer and not a teacher (and certainly not an assistant): I was just planning to talk and expecting the students to take notes. "The assistant is meant to be fun," he told me, "They only get to see you once every three weeks and it's meant to be a treat. You're supposed to be a break from the teachers."

He didn't mean it cruelly, but I felt chastened and he was right: it was a long time since I'd been in a classroom, not a lecture theatre, and I'd forgotten what I used to enjoy doing when I was a student. I sat in on a couple of his lessons and then went home and thought about what I could do that was different and fun but still educational.
The next day, I came in and asked the teacher if I could take his next class. He was recalcitrant, especially since he'd not been expecting me that day, but I wanted to make up for the class I'd missed. He eventually acquiesced but said he'd take over again if it looked like the class was bored or confused and took his place at the back with, I believe, some trepidation. I stood up before the class and told them that I was thinking of a British celebriry and they had twenty questions to guess their identity, but I'd only answer 'yes' or 'no'.
They loved it.
We played it four time, covering forty minutes, and for the final fifteen, we played a competitive game of Telephone, which is what you have to call Chinese Whispers in schools now- the kids all called it Arab Telephone anyway, which is the French name, cos they're all racists. Yet again, they really enjoyed it and I was vindicated.
The teacher congratulated me on putting together a much better lesson, and said that this was what he wanted to see more of in future. (He asked me to come back and play it with them again later today). And so I learnt an important lesson about teaching children which I'm pretty sure they already taught me at the TEFL conference I attended: Find the Fun. The fact that this lesson, for me at least, was first professed by Faith from Buffy does not lessen its impact.

She always Finds the Fun. (Spoilers/ In Killing people/Spoilers)

However, next week I've been asked to give another class on slavery, so I might be unlearning this lesson pretty quick.