[Eric]

I must add to this the response, "I'm fine, thank you. And you?"



I have NO idea what to do about this. At this point I've resigned myself to this being a fact of life. It's funny, I was teaching at a high school a few weeks ago and I walked into a new class and asked everyone how they were doing? In unison, the repeated the aformentioned line as I moved my lips saying the same thing, like i could throw my voice. It got a laugh, anyway.

When I was teaching some first graders who had never formally studied English, I taught them a few different ways to respond like, I'm great, I'm OK, I'm fine and I'm Bad. I think that is the best time to really nip this bad habit in the bud. After the habit is formed, it's a hard one to break, but if you see a group of kids enough, I think they can be taught to express themselves a bit more... um...expressively.

I think it's really important for students to know different responses not only for them to use but also, what happens if they ask a native speak how they are and the reply is, "Not bad"? The students need to know that that means the same thing as OK or,dare i say, fine.

eric