Job Discussion Forums

lumberjackej · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:07 pm Post subject: restaurant lesson ideas

Hi,

Next week I'm teaching about food and restaurants in my oral English classes. I'm thinking of showing them an American menu, and then giving them some scenarios with which they can make some dialogues.

Any suggestions for good activities that relate to meals/restaurants? What has worked well in your classes?

Thanks

EJ

cj750 · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 3081 Location: Beijing

I met a young man (f visa holder) teaching at Geely University that had created a storefront and a cafe out of cardboard and other things and had a lot of success in the oral English classes...he later went to Shangahi and I am not sure if he is on these forems..but his setup was the best I have seen in China...

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

Amazingly, I'm just finishing up a unit about food and restaurants - - perhaps we are teaching from the same book?

Here are the "outside the book" activities we are doing:

1. I have a bunch of menus I brought from America. We've looked at those and talked about them (pictures, descriptions, prices, "fast food" vs real meals, etc.). Now the kids have paper and other art supplies, some pictures of foods that I have cut from magazines and they are creating their own menus. We will talk about their restaurants/menus after they are finished.

2. In a few days, I'm bringing some ingredients into class and we are going to make cold pasta salad, chicken salad, and tuna/egg salad. We talk about these strange foreign foods, but they mean nothing to these students. This will give them an idea.

3. In groups, kids are given a situation in a restaurant and they have to write and perform a dialogue about the situation. They are graded on clarity, word choice, diction, and imagination (creativity). For example:

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

My kindergarten used McDonald's utensils and menus in its activities room... the kids loved it. I can also imagine using PIZZA HUT decoration materials to be helpful.
Basically, I think, you need to focus on the role of a waiter/waitress (a Pizza Hut waitress' job is rather different from a CHinese hole-in-the-wall eatery); then what comes on the table is important as well. The food items, on the other hand, can be learned with the help of menus...

Yu · Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 1219 Location: Shanghai

Get the menu from a local Chinese place you like to eat at.... have the students translate it into English....

hesterprynne · Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 386

The Boggles World website has a unit for this.

lumberjackej · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 3:19 am Post subject:

Thanks, everyone, for all the great ideas.

Kevin, you seem like a great teacher! How old are your 'kids', anyway? I teach college students, but they'd probably still like the art idea.

EJ

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

I teach Senior-middle school. I love my Senior Two students this year. Anytime we do the boring-but-we-have-to-do-it bookwork, most of them are like sitting statues. Once we start doing artistic, creative projects, most of them come alive and I am constantly amazed at their talents. I wish I was a good enough teacher to just do the "fun" things all the time, but my creativity would wane if I tried to do these sort of things week in and week out for 9-10 months. I like using my textbook to get the basics in, some students grasp the ideas easily, some tune me out - - but then to take the theme of the unit and build on it, really makes my teaching time enjoyable.

Now, as for my Senior Ones . . . . (another time and thread perhaps!)