Job Discussion Forums

[7969]

Anyone got any good role play ideas for beginner/intermediate/students whose level remains unknown because they're too afraid to speak in class classes? i've found plenty online but i'd rather use some that are proven to work in china.

i dont do role plays often but could use some ideas.

7969

[malu]

Haggling over the price of something. Buyer won't pay more than 1000, points out shortcomings of article for sale, seller won't take less than 2000, emphasizes selling points. Sometimes works.

[Lobster]

I've successfully used the role plays "Greengrocer" and "Fast Food Worker" in classes. Needs a fair amount of one-time prep work.

You need:
pictures or models of fruits, vegetables or fast food items (A-grade, B-grade or unaceptable quality) laminate if possible for future use
items to be used as "cash"
price lists (chalk/white boards work even better but increase set-up time)
item wholesale cost list (for shopkeepers)
shopping lists (for customers)
shopping/bargaining phrases lists (for customers)
selling/bargaining phrases lists (for shopkeepers)

Some students (6) act as sellers of produce or fast food workers. The other students are customers. Shoppers must come home with the items on their lists. Often they don't have enough "money" and have to haggle. Others get rotten food and have to fight for refunds. Shopkeepers need to maximize profits based on wholesale/retail price difference. Lots of fun and opens the door to other topics such as diet and nutrition, consumer issues and business. You can have fun extorting rents, selling protection, or suing the shop owners too!

RED

[Wonderful Yunqi!!]

I guess it depends on how old the students are, if they are average or better college freshman, it seems to me that most like to perform.

I recently had several different groups of freshman perform a dialogue between 2 or more people. I didn't care what they talked about, as long as it was in English and everyone spoke. I did ask that everyone use their names in the dialogue so that I could try to remember who they are. I was surprised by a few of the dialogues they created. A few sang as well, including a loner boy.

I did suggest a few ideas, such as basic greetings and ask for help finding your way around campus. Although I'm not an expert in the field, I think it is important to let the students feel relaxed and have fun in class. Especially so when performing a dialogue/role-play in front of an audience. At least at first, after awhile I will move into different everyday situations, such as Bank, Post Office, Restaurant, Grocery Store, Ticket Reservations, Hotel and Airport.

Not that anyone asked, but, I consider these dialogues homework. Assuming the students attend and participate = perform homework, they are guaranteed 30 points out of 100 when I calculate the final grade.

I also ask them to perform a major group project in which I encourage creativity. In the past, I've had students come to class with costumes, background music and other props. This equals 20 points.

The mid-term and final are both worth 25 points. The mid-term may be a pair; the final is just them. Both involve a somewhat serious topic.

I truly do enjoy being back at a university. It's so much easier.

Good Luck!

[mjlpsu]

With my students (22 and older, very mixed levels) I've used some that have worked to some extent.

1. Reserving a hotel room/confirming a reservation. The prep time depends on the levels of students--go over a little vocabulary and things they need when making reservations. I always gave them a sample or two after they had enough time to talk with each other.

2. Business appointments. I used a variation from a worksheet I found online. Give each student a schedule for a week with some things already filled in (should be at least two sets of these). Then they have to try to make appointments with each other to fill in the rest. I think they each had 4 appointments to make. You can also add cancellation and rescheduling to this one.

[roadwalker]

My students have one experience in this life: preparing for entrance exams. Some of my real-life role plays have fizzled, I think in part due to their own limited experience. Buying and selling, working out problems together, corruption, all seem to get good responses.

On the other hand, they seem to enjoy fantasy role plays as movie stars, singers, athletes are also popular, since some people like to go way out of themselves, maybe since it's less personal.

[sui jin]

Something that worked well with my conversation classes was to have the students act out a scene from a film, book or story. They could do this in pairs or small groups, and had to prepare it as homework to present in the following week's class. Obviously there was a range of acting talent, but some of the scenes were very entertaining. One group did the judgment scene from The Merchant of Venice. Others did scenes from TV soap operas.

[patsy]

One time I had them do "commercials", I brought in things like chopsticks, fangbian mian, toothpaste, etc. and had them perform in groups of 2-4. It was probably one of my best classes ever and I was amazed at their creativity. Of course I had a big group of girls who liked to perform.

[johnchina]

I made a set of cards with different pieces of information on them - fictitious name, job (something flashy like fashion model, oil company director - think 'Dallas' rather than 'Neighbours'), age, nationality and two 'objectives' like 'get a date for Friday night' or 'sign a business deal'. Give a card to each student and give them a few minutes to make sure they understand what's on their card. Tell the students to pretend they are at a party. Explain that they should ask simple questions to each other first, then try to achieve their objectives. Then set them loose. I find that they are intimidated at first, so I usually have a card for myself and set the ball rolling. So far, it's worked well with almost every group.

Generally, I find that students do much better when you ask them to be something they aren't (less concerned about losing face?). For example, I've had boys pretending to be girls and vice versa. The best moment had to be when 5-6 boys walked out of the class - they said "We're girls, so we have to go to the toilet together".

[The Voice Of Reason]

[sheeba]

I'd say get them error correcting whilst learning how to communicate. Push them to teach English themselves.Responsibilty breeds encouragement. Drill that.

[Angel46]

After having taught them 1, 2, 4, and 5 in previous classes, I then introduce them to the "Art of Small Talk". I asked them to tell me what THEY usually talk about with their friends. Examples of topics submitted were: Weather, News, Sports, the Olympics, Celebrity Gossip, Class, Exams, Weekend Activities.

1. Greetings
2. Introductions
3. Small Talk
4. End the Conversation
5. Goodbyes

After that, it is easy for THEM to perform roleplays, using the 5 Steps noted above. For variety, I often put Small Talk topics on small squares of paper for each PAIR to take. They then have 5 minutes to prepare a roleplay. We often make it a competition, with the class voting for the best one.

PROPS help too! I remember my textbook once had a dialogue about Going through Customs - in the dialogue the passenger had a bottle of perfume to declare, some jewelry, and a watch. With these as props, a really BORING dialogue had all my students actually VOLUNTEERING to act it out!

[amphivera]

OP, I don't know what age group you're teaching (university? senior/junior middle school?) but here's my experience using roleplays with senior/junior middle school students.

If you're teaching this age group, there's no point in practicing any kind of travel or business english type dialogues. No matter how hard I tried to spice things up stuff like, "passport control," "making an appointment" will be dead on arrival.

Some of the more successful roleplay activities I've tried include:

1) Restaurant role play.

Pretty straightforward. Make photocopies of a real diner menu (just run a google search for "diner+menu+pdf"). Students alternate as waiters and customers. The kick is that after they master the basic "ordering" dialogue the groups have to chose one surprise scenario that occurs in the restaurant:

a) Customer turns out to be robbers/gang members and attempt to rob the restaurant.
b) Customer has no money and has to negotiate with the waiter.
c) Customer is deeply disatisfied with his/her meal and complains. Waiter has to handle the complaints
d) Any other "twist" the students can think of.

I gave the student groups time to write up their own dialogues. Then I made the groups present, supplying them with props (water gun, paper plates, cutlery, wine glass, table cloth -> basic restaurant table setup). The students loved it, and the exercise pushed them to generate language on their own.

2) TV Commercial Roleplay.
Prepwork: I created 7 fake products by taking stuff that was lying around in my apartment (jar of Nescafe instant coffee, a mooncake, shampoo, can of redbull, headache medication, headphones, bottle of mineral water) and attaching homemade labels on them. These are the products I came up with:

- Fresh-Aqua: A new brand of mineral water
- Turbo Energy: A new brand of energy drink
- Insta-coffee: A new brand of instant coffee
- King�s Mooncake: A new brand of mooncake
- Supersilky: A new brand of hair shampoo for women
- No-PAIN: A new brand of headache medicine
- Everclear Headphones: A new brand of headphones

I let the students divide themselves into groups of 2, 3 or 4. I made them come up with a company name for their group and they had to choose one product that they wanted to market. Their task was to come up with a 1-3 minute commercial (infomercial?) for their product. I gave them worksheets that worked them step by step through the process of coming up with an "introduction" and some "selling points". It was great practice for superlatives. In the end, I hauled in the realia and we went through the presentations. It was really a riot. Some groups came up with jingles, and one group even used puppets to present. Some of my "zombie" students even perked up (maybe it had something to do with the fact that I promised chocolate to the best group).

I have more roleplay ideas that I can share, but I think those were the best ones.

[beck's]

Good suggestions everyone. It is great to read some practical lesson plans that can be used in the classroom by real teachers rather than what we are treated to in InTime's theoretical blog here on Dave's.

How about the drunk at the party. Student A is really drunk but wants to drive home. He has been drunk many times before and lives a short distance away. Student B has been drinking Coke all night. He is afraid his friend will hurt himself or kill somebody or end up in jail. They have an argument over the issue. Use props like an empty beer bottle and an empty coke bottle and a set of keys.

The boys love this one and as China becomes more prosperous it will become increasingly relevant.

[Mister Al]

I've done both of amphivera's suggestions and they are both diamond especially if you do it over 3 classes- one for prep/script writing, one for practice and one for role play activity [/quote]