Teaching English in Korea - ESL blog

Rewording a roleplay to increase interaction

Today I used an unbelievable story roleplay in which one student reports a story about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman while the other students expresses disbelief. I wanted students to build a conversation using past simple, past progressive, and present perfect.

Taxi driver:
Today, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were running away from paparazzi when they got in your cab. You took them to LAX (Los Angeles airport). Tell your friend about what happened.

Driver's friend:
Your friend is always making up stories about meeting celebrities. Politely tell your friend that you're tired of hearing make-believe stories.

I put drivers together to plan their story: "I was driving..." and friends together: "You've told me so many stories..." Then into pairs for the roleplay. Now there was interactions and students enjoyed it, but the interaction was lower quality than I would have liked. Each student would read his/her prepared story and then the interaction would be something like: "You're lying" "No I'm not" "You told me the same story yesterday" "I don't remember".

I did notice a few useful mistakes: "You was drinking a beer this morning?" "You are always tell me stories" but generally the interaction wasn't built on the structures I hoped it would be. I'm thinking about this as a revision:

Taxi driver:
Today, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were running away from paparazzi when they got in your cab. You took them to LAX (Los Angeles airport). Tell your friend about what happened. Your friend might not believe you because you sometimes make up stories to entertain your friend (who has a boring job). In fact, the last time you told a story (one month ago Drew Barrymore got into your cab) your friend didn't believe you even though you were telling the truth.

Driver's friend:
Your friend was always making up stories about meeting celebrities until about a month ago. Last month s/he told you a story about meeting Drew Barrymore but you made your friend promise not to tell any more stories (this made your friend angry). Today your friend is claiming s/he met Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, but they've broken up. Politely tell your friend that you're tired of hearing make-believe stories.

What do you think?

Posted by James Trotta at July 8, 2004 2:55 PM