ORDERING IN A RESTAURANT

[MaureenQC]

There are 25 students of mixed ability in my English conversation classes (they are French speakers). They are basically mature adults ranging in age from 35 to 65 with the average closer to 50. The classes are approximately 50% conversation/discussion and 50% written and oral activities including games to increase their vocabulary. Since they all travel to some extent, some of the vocabulary is geared to anything related to that subject.

My problem: I have a fair amount of very interesting restaurant dialogue material (lots of real-life menus) but what I see out there in the forums is role-playing with some ss taking the part of the waiter and some, the part of the customer(s). I don’t see my students playing the waiter because there is little chance of them ever being employed as such and I don’t think the vocabulary used by the waiter would be very practical for them.

I thought of playing the waiter myself but am afraid with a class this size, a good number of the class will disengage as I play to a small number of the students.

Any suggestions??? If this helps, my group of 25 is divided into 1 beginners, 2 intermediate and 1 advance group. Most of our activities are done in sub-groups and on occasion with the entire class.

I would really appreciate the help. Thanks.

[Grumpy]

I don't see a problem with the students taking turns at playing the part of the waiters. There's nothing particularly difficult or arcane about the vocabulary or phraseology of waiters, and your students will have come across the necessary phrases in their own language and personal experience of being waited on. Just because they are not training to be waiters is no reason not to involve them in a little enjoyable role-play. Encourage the "customers" to ask about the various items on the menu [Does the ravioli have any nuts in it?], and tell the "waiters" that they can be as inventive as they like in their responses.

[emsr2d2]

I entirely agree with Grumpy. I don't think your students' prospective careers should matter when role playing (not at this stage). If they were having one-to-one lessons as young adults then role playing could be much more job-specific. In addition, if the students travel at any time, they are going to need to understand any waiters they deal with. There's not much point them learning how to say "Are there nuts in the ravioli?" if they're not going to understand "I'm not quite sure. I'll have to go and check with the chef". They'll learn the vocabulary they're likely to hear much better if they get the chance to speak it themselves.

[Tdol]

If they know the questions a waiter might ask, then they're better prepared for understanding them in real life.

[lingokid]

I'm always cautious when having to decide whether to "plaY" these kind of "games" in the classroom:):)

[Flying Dutchman]

Good morning, I’m Dutch living in France and retired. I am now teaching English to individual students.
I played already with these kind of situations and it’s no problem at all if they play either the waiter or the client. On the contrary, it’s an amazing good experience for them to ‘imagine” the situation and to create and construct the right questions and answers. This will help them to better understand the situation in real.
Best regards,
Jean

[5jj]

Welcome to the forum, FD.