'Nice' punishments

This year I'm teaching English conversation class to 3rd yrs, I've decided to give them really easy bits of homework so we can discuss something the week after. I'd say about 50% of the class didn't do the really easy homework

I know that my class isn't a core subject for any of them and as well as that so far they pretty much all seem like nice kids and I don't want to alienate them, but you know there is the teacher thing where you have to push them a bit or they'll slack off or even lose respect for you, so I need to devise a 'nice' punishment for people who don't do the homework (this week the homework was just to watch a movie about what we chatted about in class so there's no excuse....)

any ideas? ideally something fairly fiendish and devious

are you allowed to spank 23 year old female university students in China?

Make them learn to spell the word and sing the song: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b-Z0SSyUcw

 

I used to get the students that didn't do the work to stand up, then I'd sit in their chair and tell them that they had to do a stand up show for the rest of the class and I'd only stand up and let them sit down again if they made me laugh.
Actually it worked quite well because they felt very embarrassed by having to stand up in front of the class and be stupid, most never repeated the mistake.

It may be useful to give some assignments that they turn in for marking & that affect their grades. Or have quizzes on the material they should know from the homework. The punishment then becomes a lower grade.

Trouble with that is that of course they'll "help each other", not all will actually do the work. There's probably some clever way to take advantage of this in teaching, turn it into teamwork that benefits everyone, but I'm not at all sure what it is.

A friend came up with a trick I loved. He got word-for-word identical papers from three students, on a writing assignment that was graded out of 20. Good paper: 18 out of 20. He gave them 6 each, and they got the message.

Maybe something to encourage them.  You could split them into four teams.  Give each team a name.  Each week you can total up the amount of people that did their homework for each team and keep a running total that they can see.  They might push each other to do their homework so they can be top of the league.  Maybe even the lower students in the class will do their homework so they can tell their parents that they are the top of something.  You could have a prize for the top team and a punishment for the last team.  Try and make it that some of the top students are mixed into each team as they wont want to be the bottom of anything and they will encourage their team mates as well.

Would it not be easier just to tell them they failed that class and got a zero in their daily score?? I mean, they are Uni students, right? I don't recall being punished at Uni. If I failed to do my course-work which, essentially, their homework is, I would fail that assignment and if I missed too much course-work, I would not be able to do the exam. Of course, that is not possible to do in China, but just plain telling them that not doing the homework will result in a low or failing grade at the end of the term.

Would it not be easier just to tell them they failed that class and got a zero in their daily score?? I mean, they are Uni students, right? I don't recall being punished at Uni. If I failed to do my course-work which, essentially, their homework is, I would fail that assignment and if I missed too much course-work, I would not be able to do the exam. Of course, that is not possible to do in China, but just plain telling them that not doing the homework will result in a low or failing grade at the end of the term.

Yeah I'm not sure what is the uni. policy for passing and failing. They (said) that they didn't get homework from this class last year, it's really different to how I remember university though, much more like a school....

What sort of uni are you at?  There are universities and there are universities....Particularly at lower tier private colleges it can be a real struggle getting the students to do anything. Many expect to sit back and be entertained in waijiao class  (in contrast to their other classes where they can sit back and have a nap).

I'm not saying give up on your idea of how class should be or anything, just be aware that this is a pretty common phenomenon, probably more so at unis than private training schools.

Ritual humiliation and pain, lots of pain. It's the only way that works.

What sort of uni are you at?  There are universities and there are universities....Particularly at lower tier private colleges it can be a real struggle getting the students to do anything. Many expect to sit back and be entertained in waijiao class  (in contrast to their other classes where they can sit back and have a nap).

I'm not saying give up on your idea of how class should be or anything, just be aware that this is a pretty common phenomenon, probably more so at unis than private training schools.

There does seem to be an element of that

It is not a 'proper' university. The students are nice but a lot of them don't seem that bothered about the class (university teachers shouldn't have to coax students as much as I've been coaxing them and it's only been 2 weeks so it should be a honeymoon period...)