Thinking outside the box

Just finished an English lesson with the older children and some of the staff. In a try to make them think for themselves and not just copy things from the board, I was instead asked the question "What are you trying to teach us?" followed by "I have a text book from my old teacher that I can show you" and "we want to learn grammar and sentence structure." Meaning they want me to tell them what to write in their books and how to do it. Feeling a little bit discouraged and not sure how to proceed with class tomorrow. I just want them to think a little bit outside of the box. I had talked about attributes that describes our personality and asked them to think about words that would describe them, so that later on they can use this in order to write a letter about themselves...apparently not what they are expecting from class. Ideas anyone???