Activity

Konbini Roleplay

A fun roleplay exercise for students to practice reading, listening, and ordering food in a convenience store roleplay

This was done alongside Lesson 7: I'd Like Pizza from the One World Smiles 5 textbook, but really works with any lessons about ordering food.

I have large classes usually around 25-30 students so I had to have shorter lists, but if you have smaller classes this could definitely be a longer or more extensive activity.

Rules:
In groups of 3, each student will have a role.
1. The Employee - They will move to the back of the classroom and form a sort of market with the other employees of the other groups. Each employee has 1 or 2 types of food, but they will have all seven of that type of food (i.e. one person is the "coffee seller"). They will initiate the main script, asking "What would you like," or other additional sentences which you can add. I also encouraged them to "advertise" their products, shouting out the names of their food like "corn dogs here!"

2. The Shopper/"Uber Eats" - These students cannot see the list that is handed to their group, and need to listen for their orders. I had the best results when they would only get one food item at a time, otherwise they got confused or lost quickly, so I recommended as such to my students. You can try to get them to do English with the List Master, but I had varying results of them sticking to it. YMMV, but I was more concerned with getting the dialogue with the Employees correct.

3. The List Master - This student will be given a list to read and explain to their Uber Eats so that they get the correct foods. They need to tell the other student in English how many of their desired food/drink. I have been trying to get my students more comfortable with reading English so I didn't use any katakana, so you can add that if you think your students need it. This role in particular could be a bit boring since they sort of sit around, so I tried to help them read or check that they knew each food on the list while they were waiting.

For each rotation, it took around 3-5 minutes depending for students to get all the items and return them to their group. Afterwards, my JTE and I would check if they were able to get all the items, then have the shoppers return the food back to the market and change roles. They'd also switch out lists with a random one face down at the front of the class, so they kept getting different fun foods to grab. There were also paper bags that we used that my JTE made from origami and string to make it feel more authentic.

I hoped to use money as well, but didn't have time to teach it before the end of the semester. My plan was to either write on the back of the foods various amounts of yen, or to give each employee a random yen amount and that determined how expensive their items were. They could then say "(total) please," or "That will be (total)."

Files:
Medium files (requires an account to download) -
  • コンビニ Roleplay.pptx (1.32 MB)
  • 2
    Submitted by Buriiji December 19, 2024 Estimated time: 15-20 minutes

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