We have chosen upper levels instruction as one of our big topics this year. In the comment below Nathan opens up a can of Whoopass on the problem by pointing out how students’ interests differ from level one to the upper levels, with level two, from what I infer below, being a kind of hinge year from interest in silly things to interest in how kids fit into the world:
My level two and up classes don’t eat up the goofy parts of TPRS anywhere near as much as level ones, so your level one students’ enthusiasm may be a false positive as far as what expectations for where the level two interest level should sit. You don’t need “silliness”; you just need to develop a sense of play. For my intermediate to upper level students we do that with talking about the larger world–weird stories happening in the world, cool pictures, things happening at school and community, what they did that weekend (and what they should have done). Then let the students work themselves into those stories, react to them, position themselves within the worlds you unfold to them. Having older students learn more about how they fit into the big, huge, weird world out there is irresistible to them. Then just insist that the process has to happen in Spanish. I think of all the excuses/complaints that I heard from my students who started without TPRS, the root cause was that they hadn’t developed the discipline to live in the target language yet (because I hadn’t helped them develop that skill previously).