"How's everybody doing?"

One of the things I’m always told by my colleagues who visit my classes is that I’m dry, serious, and even scary, and that’s not how they know me outside classroom. So, I’ve been working on different strategies I can use in my classes to make appear more friendly and more approachable in the first sight, even though my students learn that I am, during the semester. Aside from jokes, chitchat, and other small things, my students have shown a great interest in me asking them how they are doing that day, at the beginning of each class. I remember I was going to this dance class and from the very first day the instructor asked: “how’s everyone doing?”, then faced with a quite response, he asked it again and with more energy, the response was much louder this time, but he asked one more time and the class responded in unison and as loud as possible. That already had put all of us in a position that considered ourselves “there”. We were there to learn something and we had to respond. This kept happening everyday and also in a few other occasions when he asked if we’ve learned something or not. So I decided to do the same in my next course. Surprisingly, several students commented on this approach and said that it made the class atmosphere so much more friendlier at the beginning of each day of class. I think I can extend this so much more and learn a few lessons from it.