Inappropriate Social Greetings!

Does anyone else struggle sometimes to do ‘appropriate’ greetings? You know, as the social skills textbook instructs, especially when hugely distracted by something else? Usually I can manage it, but this morning I may have managed to diversify!

I happened to need to pop to the Scout shop this morning to buy some badges for my Beavers. After I got out of my car I realised that there was what looked like a dead hedgehog by the side of the car park. So I had to stop for a few minutes to investigate whether a) it was actually a hedgehog, and b) it was actually dead. So after establishing those facts, I walked into the shop and rather than doing the textbook greeting, I just said “there’s a dead hedgehog in the car park!” Luckily they were fine with it, they even asked what group scarf it was wearing Rofl BUT this really isn’t the appropriate way for me to greet people who I haven’t seen for a few months!!

  • Have your students found this method more agreeable? I imagine it is better for them too as opposed to a ‘clinical’ teacher-student relationship?

  • Ohh I've just remembered another one! When I was at uni I had a little 100cc Suzuki, and as I was about to get on it one autumn I noticed a wasp struggling to walk over the seat. When I got home to my student house with half a dozen student friends, I announced "The wasps are getting sleepy!" in very much the same way as your dead hedgehog anecdote. Everyone fell about laughing saying it was like a code, and they should have responded with something like "...and the clouds are drifting slowly in Birmingham" in order to gain access to some secret or other :-)

  • I prefer to think of it as assisting people who use English as a second or other language to use the language productively in their career/slives. I'd like to go beyond the traditional teacher/student relationship, because I have found it to be very isolating

  • Reminds me of something which isn't exactly the same but has similarities in that I cringed afterwards and have remembered it so far for about 30 years.

    All that time ago, I was out shopping and aware that I "needed" to get my dad a present for fathers' day. I was looking at something (can't remember what) on a high shelf that I couldn't reach, and the shop assistant asked if I'd like her to get it down for me to have a look. I panicked at the thought of all the social interaction around me examining it, trying to decide under her gaze whether to buy it or not and then having to say (probably) 'no I don't want it please put it back & sorry to bother you etc.' so I blurted out "No thanks its just a fathers' day thing" as I was bolting out of the shop! 

  • This seems like a good strategy for teaching your students!

  • I’m not worried, they know me in the shop and they took it well, a little bit of light relief after a busy morning! It just made me think how when I’m distracted and the mask slips, I really don’t adhere to the rules of ‘appropriate social interaction’. It’s not my default setting. But I’m ok with that.

    I used to hear all sorts when I used to get the bus regularly! 

    I know what you mean about going past the line, I don’t always know when to stop with a joke!

  • Well exactly, it was important and they needed to know about it Slight smile  

    It was a novel conversation starter!

  • I've heard and said stranger things! Wouldn't worry too much! I remember seeing a guy I know on the bus, first thing he said was "I had a heart attack, smoked too many rocks on my 30th". The bus was full, but it didn't throw me out. I'd have been thrown out if he would have been any less than his usual crazy self. No filter at all that one.

    I'm OK with greetings, it's banter that gets me into trouble. I can go way past the line, especially when it's that passive-aggressive crap.

  • Hey, it got the message across straight away! 

    I actually find it very hard to initiate conversations with people I'm not very comfortable talking to. Maybe getting straight to the point is the way to get over that? ;) 

  • I like doing stuff like proofreading theses for people who need to write in English, but its their second language. A lot of it can be done in solitary, but you can also do online discussions of the content, and also have F2F meetings. The bonus for the client is that it prepares them for the presentation of their work, because i tend to view their stuff as something I can learn something from for myself, and so the conversation can get quite animated. But the way i look at it is that if English is your second language, it is better to get your work down in fairly down-to-earth language.It makes presenting your work so much easier.

  • Maybe second year learners might be slightly more of a challenge for you? I guess having to repeatedly teach students the beginners words would get a bit tedious!

  • TESOL, but I'm retired. I might start again, but if I do it will probably be only with people where I can skip the basics and skip straight to the interesting content; in other words, I want to be a lifelong learner and have another different career. That is something I have done before, with positive results.

  • Slight smile I can do socially appropriate greetings when I have to but in this instance I was too distracted by the dead hedgehog to bother! It made my mask slip! In what capacity do you teach social greetings?

    Tone may have an impact but I’m quite monotone most of the time unless I’m forcing myself to vary my tone of voice, I wasn’t then. Because they were just glad of something a little different after a very busy morning!

  • I think I prefer "There's a dead hedgehog in the car park". But that's probably because I'm plum tuckered out by teaching appropriate social greetings . It can be absolutely soul-destroying; and probably for the students too. It sounds like the shop staff kind of enjoyed hearing something different.

    Might, also, the tone in which these things are said have a greater impact that the actual words.

  • It is more interesting and luckily they’re used to me being a bit random! I’m usually ok with the whole social greetings thing, just sometimes there are other things that I deem more important/worthy of attention Slight smile It took me until reading a social skills book at the age of 37 to ‘get’ the reciprocal conversation thing though, like ‘why’ did no one explain that to be before!

  • Oh I don’t know-it’s more interesting than hello? I know what you mean though. Around here the appropriate greeting is hello, how ya doing. I still can’t compute the fact that this isn’t a question you should answer...

1 2 3 4