Staged role play

This is a series of five small role plays which work best with intermediate students. The students are motivated to persuade and argue in a light-hearted manner.

Preparation

Download and make copies of the role play cards. You'll need one set for each group of three students. You might like to pre-teach some structures for expressing and asking for opinions.

Procedure

• Elicit or explain the concept of a gap year (between school and university) and ask students what they'd like to do if they had a free year.
• Elicit travelling and hang up a large map of the world.
• Tell the students they have a round-the-world air ticket valid for a year and they are going to go on an imaginary tour around the world with two friends.
• Put the students into groups of three.
• Hang a world map on the board (or a globe) and ask each group to discuss where they'd like to go first.
• Get the students in their groups to think about any problems that might occur with such a trip. For example, language, arguments over accommodation, where to go, etc.
• Tell the students they are now in the country they chose and they have to act out their roles as described in the cards.
• Give your students a minute to read their cards and take them in. The students then carry out role-play 1. Listen and make notes of any vocabulary or pronunciation problems.
• Do plenary feedback with each group to see if they stayed in an expensive or cheap hotel.
• Do the other role plays with quick feedback from each group and a little work on any language problems they have had each time.