Animal Psychology

I have been teaching an interesting activity recently. It is entitled 'Animal Psychology' and it is based on students naming their three favourite animals and giving reasons why they are in their top three. This activity is meant to increase their adjective vocabulary. For example, a student might pick a cat because it is affectionate, cute and agile or choose a dog because it is loyal, friendly and funny. These choices reveal the personality traits of the student, according to the teaching book I am using. Their favourite animal indicates the type of person they want to be. The second animal is meant to indicate how the student appears to other people. And the third animal is meant to reveal their true personality. Each time I teach this exercise, it throws up interesting, and somewhat bizarre, interpretations of my student's personalities.
In my Tuesday evening class, Kazahito's favourite animal is a cow. I asked why. He told me a cow was delicious, fat and had lots of milk. I then had to tell him that this meant he wanted to be delicious, fat and have lots of milk.
Sometimes this task backfires. Let's take the case of Akaki - a Monday evening student of mine. She picked a fox as her third favourite animal and her reasons for picking a fox was because it was cunning, sly, and dangerous. I had to tell her that, according to the book, her true personality was cunning, sly and dangerous. Understandably she looked slightly hurt by this revelation. I tried to soothe her by stating that I thought the book was rubbish and asked her to reveal her second favourite animal which was a Leopard. I asked her why this was. She said she liked their spots, sharp teeth and nocturnal nature. I then had to reveal that, according to the stupid book, other people saw her as spotty, possessing dangerously sharp teeth and someone that likes to lurk about after dark.
She looked inconsolable.
I moved things swiftly along with haste and asked her to reveal her favourite animal which would reveal her true personality, hoping for the love of god that it was a nice fluffy little animal you could pet. The choice she finally settled on was a hippo. Regardless of her choice, I insisted her favourite animal was a bunny rabbit which was beautiful, funny, and friendly. She looked please.