I do use "you're welcome". But now you have me wondering whether I use it
because I teach it out of the textbooks (the "
thank you you're welcome thank you you're welcome thank you you're WELcome" song from
Supertots springs immediately to mind
).
But no, I think I use it naturally. Perhaps I grew up in a more conservative neighborhood than you or something. I agree that teaching more than one response is the best way to go, though -well, except when your students are 4 or 5 years old- including "you're welcome" which, never fear, is still in use.
Personally, I'm tired of hearing "I'm fine" to the question "How are you?". I only say "I'm fine" when I'm extremely angry and don't want to have a conversation at all, but how do you explain
that to kids? Sometimes, I ban the answer "I'm fine" and force the kids to reply with any one of a large number of alternatives (which, come to think of it, could be taught by printing out a pageful of smilies)
