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Bank Role-play :Five Simple Banking TransactionsMaterials:Bank Teller Activity SheetBank Client Activity SheetRealia: Bank Cards and Photo ID

Realia: Biggle Bucks and American DollarsRealia: Checks and Bills

Purpose and Audience:The purpose of these materials is to get the students to practice making basic bank transaction in English.This is a fairly simple role-play intended for false beginners (or perhaps even beginners). In short,students will go into the bank and deposit money, withdraw money, cash checks, and pay bills. Due to thenature of the material, this role-play is intended for adults.

Class Set-up:The class is divided into two groups: bank tellers and bank customers. Bank tellers should all sit in a linefacing the clients (like in a real bank). Bank tellers are given the Bank Teller Activity Sheet and a supply ofBiggle Bucks and American Dollars.

Bank clients will visit the bank tellers and conduct transactions. Each bank client will need a Bank ClientActivity Sheet, A Bank Card, One Piece of Photo ID,Two Checks, and Three Bills (gas, electricity, andtelephone).

Bank clients will go to a bank teller and conduct one of the five transactions (pay a bill, cash a check,withdraw money, deposit money, and exchange some currency. When they are finished, they go toanotherbank teller and conduct another transaction. Each time the students go to a teller, they should get

a signature. The students can use the conversation as a guide. If you have time remaining have thestudents switch roles and go over it again.

Quirks:I always like to throw in a few hidden quirks for the more observant students in the hopes of eliciting somespontaneous conversation: One passport is expired, one check is void, one bill has the wrong total, thephoto ID is awful, and some of the clients only have library cards. If students miss these fact, that's OK. Isay nothing. But sometimes, it's nice if it generates some extra conversation.

http://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BankDialogue.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/ClientActionSheet.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/IDandBankCards.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BoggleBucks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BankDialogue.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BoggleBucks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/ClientActionSheet.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/ClientActionSheet.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/IDandBankCards.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/ClientActionSheet.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/IDandBankCards.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BoggleBucks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BankDialogue.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BoggleBucks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/ClientActionSheet.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/ClientActionSheet.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/IDandBankCards.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BillsandChecks.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/ox/BankDialogue.doc

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More Complex Banking Role-play:There is also another more complex banking role-playthat deals with borrowing money, applying forcredit cards and getting mortgages on this site.

A Role-play Line-up

Time:1 hour

Focus:

The purpose of this lesson is to give false beginners some practice at job interviews in English. Thislesson is intended more for adults or college students. Although, a real job interview will be much morecomplex, this lesson should give students a look at the vocabulary that is necessary for doing a job

interview in English.

This lesson follows a format of a discussion, followed by a role-play activity.

Preparation:

The teacher will need to print off and photocopy three MS word documents:Benefits and QualificationsEmployers Activity Sheets

Job Seekers Activity Sheets

Note: The Employer Sheets and the Job Seeker Sheets are both seven pages long. There are seven

different employers and seven different job seekers. Also, you might want to consider editing theinformation to suit your particular class.

Introduction and Discussion:

Tell the students that you will be talking about job interviews today. Define the words benefitandqualification on the board.

Make a chart with the headings benefits and qualifications on the board and ask the students to come upwith some examples. Write the examples under the appropriate headings.

Now hand out the worksheet titled Benefits and Qualifications. Go over it as a class. In groups decidewhat the most important benefits and qualifications are. Ask a few students what benefits they want. Thenask a few students what qualifications they have.

There are a lot of vocabulary items related to benefits and qualifications so you may have to do a lot ofdefining for the students. For example, what is the difference between a wage and a salary?

Role-play Activity: Job Fair

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Now, comes the real focus of the class: a role-play activity to practice doing job interviews in English.Divide the class into two groups: companies seeking to hire employees and people seeking to find jobs.

The companies line up in row. And the job seekers go from company to company and ask about the jobs.The job seekers are primarily interested in what benefits they can get. The companies are primarilyinterested in the qualifications of potential employess.

Before you let the students go at it, you should probably model an example interview with one student.You may also want to discuss the questions that each party will want to ask (though I've found it is notnecessary).

Both groups should fill out the table on their activity worksheet. And when they are done and if timepermits, you can ask the employers who they would like to hire and why.

The Woman Who Slept for Thirty Years

Open-ended Task-based Learning:

April's lesson was inspired by a reading exercise I came across on another good ESL site: Frankie's ESLWorksheets. While doing the exercise from that site, I realized that the article he selected would also

provide excellent material for a good open-ended task-based discussion activity.

Essentially the lesson goes like this: every student is given a fact about Mrs. Annie Shapiro. They shareinformation with other students and try to come up with a theory of what happened to Mrs. Shapiro. In the

story, she went into a coma for 30 years, but I purposefully left out any information that was a dead give

away. I actually don't care if they come up with the coma theory or not, and, in fact, I don't even care if the

original story is true. It's the process, not the end result that matters.

Activities:

Important: DO NOT TELL THEM THIS IS ABOUT A WOMEN WHO SLEPT FOR THIRTY YEARS UNTILTHE END OF PART I. In fact don't even tell them it's a true story until near the end.

This is an information gap activity where students are all given a piece of the puzzle and then must havea short discussion with each of the other students to exchange information. There are two versions of thepuzzle clues: One comes from an online news article and the other is a simplified version that I wrote forbeginning or younger learners. I have used the advanced version for intermediate university classes andthe simplified version for teaching middle school second grade.

Activity I:

First the teacher should read the articlebefore class about the woman who slept for thirty years (in actualfact it doesn't matter if you read it, but it might be more interesting to do the class). Print off a set of cluesusing either the advanced clues or the simplified clues. Cut up the clues.

In class, give every student one or two clues. Have the students memorize the contents of their clues andthen take the clues away. If a student forgets part of their clue or misunderstands some part of the clue,

http://www.generationterrorists.com/articles/30_years_later.htmlhttp://www.generationterrorists.com/articles/30_years_later.htmlhttp://bogglesworldesl.com/files/MrsShapiroAdvanced.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/files/MrsShapiro.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/files/MrsShapiro.dochttp://www.generationterrorists.com/articles/30_years_later.htmlhttp://bogglesworldesl.com/files/MrsShapiroAdvanced.dochttp://bogglesworldesl.com/files/MrsShapiro.doc

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it doesn't matter. This is an open-ended activity where process is more important than outcome. Theymust construct a theory to explain the facts they gather in class.

Now explain to the students that these clues are about a woman named Mrs. Shapiro. Tell the studentsthat their object is to figure out what happened. Students interview each other in pairs and when they arefinished with their first partner, they go on to the next partner and so on until everybody has interviewed

everybody else. (There are about ten clues so you might want to make copies if you have more than tenstudents or give some students two clues if you have less).

When they are finished the interviewing process, have them write down their theories. Some theories Ihave heard in class are time machine, frozen for thirty years, accident, deserted island, space travel,asleep, mummification, and ghosts. Again, it doesn't matter which theory so long as an explanation isgiven. Now -and this is optional-tell them that the story is true. Ask them if this changes their theory in anyway (it eliminates some things like time machines etc).

Finally, reveal the true story and go over the clues one by one and explain how they fit into the story.(This is a good chance to get some raw input from the teacher and since they've already done theexercise, it should be good comprehensible input.)

Activity II:

Now, in groups have them go over the Imagine You Slept for Thirty Years worksheet. They imagine whatit would be like if they slept for thirty years. They discuss the most important historical, sociological, andtechnological changes of the last thirty years.

Finally, you may wish to go over to Frankie's ESL worksheetsand do his reading activity as asupplement.

Mrs. Shapiro suddenly woke up and said, "I want to watch TV."

She cried when she saw her face was wrinkled.

She had never heard of the personal computers.

Most of Mrs. Shapiro's friends were dead.

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Did she take a time machine?

Was she put in a deep freeze?

Is she a ghost?

Was she on a deserted island?

Did she travel in space?

She Went To Sleep And Woke Up 30 Years Later

The real-life story of Annie Shapiro - who fell into a coma at age 50 in 1963 - is moreremarkable than the movie based on her miraculous re-awakening.

When she suddenly awoke nearly 30 years later in 1992, she was a 79-year-old granny,devastated by her appearance and the way the world had changed.

Just after she emerged from her years of darkness, she told me: "When I went to sleep, I wasa darn good-looking woman. But in the mirror, all I see is an old lady with bags around hereyes, wrinkles and grey hair.

She could not believe that her husband Martin was an old man of 81 and that her teenageson and 25-year-old daughter Marilyn were middle-aged. She was awe-struck to learn aboutcordless telephones and spaceships flights.

The talented business-woman, who had run two apron shops near Toronto, Canada, beforeher illness, fell into a coma on Nov 22, 1963, aged 50.

She was watching news reports on the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy on

her black-and-white TV set when she suffered a massive stroke.

For the next two years, Mrs Shapiro was totally paralysed, with her eyes staring wide open.Her husband would put drops in her eyes every few hours to keep them from drying out.

Mr Shapiro, steel foundry worked, said he dressed and fed her "like a totally helpless child."

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"She couldnt think or walk," he said.

At night, he lay next to his sleeping beauty in the darkness. He consulted experts, but no onecould help her.

After two years of physical therapy, he finally got her to the point where she could set upand walk, assisted on either side. She could not see but could eat simple food.

As the years passed, Mrs Shapiros son and daughter married and had two children each,and most of her friends died.

The Vietnam War ended, astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Richard Nixonresigned over the Watergate scandal, communism collapsed and the world entered thecomputer age.

During her long sleep, Mrs Shapiros body began breaking down. She had cataract surgery,a hysterectomy and a hip replacement.

But amazingly, on Oct 14, 1992, she suddenly snapped out of her coma. Mr Shapiro, who hadretired and moved his ill wife to a retirement community in Florida, was flabbergasted.

"I was lying beside her in the bed," he said, "when she sat up and said: :Turn on thetelevision. I want to see the I Love Lucy show." It was like a dead person come to life."

Mrs Shapiro got her first shock when she realised the TV was in colour, not black-and-white.But she was rally stunned by her husbands grandfatherly appearance and her own wrinkledface.

"When she first looked in the mirror, she wanted to die," said Mr Shapiro. "She hollered andthen cried over all those lost years."

Her first thoughts were for her son Marshall. The day before her stroke, Mr Shapiro hadkicked the 16-year-old youth out of the house because he had crashed the family car.

"She wanted me to bring our son home," he said.

As he dialled Marshalls telephone number in Toronto, he told his wife that her boy was nowaged 48, married and father of two.

At first, Mrs Shapiro was afraid to get on the line and talk to him because it was a cordlessphone. "The phone didnt have any wires," she told me. "A voice was coming out of it and Ithought it must be magic."

Then she asked to telephone her sister Rose, only to be told that she and her husband weredead - and her three brothers had died , too.

Mrs Shapiros daughter Marilyn Pomerantz, 55, flew from Canada to Florida to help hermother adjust.

As the first shockwaves ebbed, Mrs Shapiro desperately tried to catch up on what hadhappened in the world. The woman who had been silent for 30 years stayed up around the

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clock for two days and did not stop talking.

Dr Glenn Englander, who was treating her for high blood pressure the day before sheawakened from her coma, called her recovery a miracle. "I gave her something to lower herblood pressure," she said. "If I did something unknowingly to help her, Id like to find out so I

can do it for others."

The most touching part of the miracle was the renewed romance between Shapiro and herhusband, who had cared for her all those years, refusing to have her placed in a nursinghome.

"When I made my marriage vows and promised to stay together in sickness and in health, Imeant it," said Mr Shapiro on a national TV show, "not like the people of today." Ourromance began all over again.

"We both could hardly walk, but Annie wanted me to take her dancing," he said.

Sadly, her husband died three years ago. And now, Mrs Shapiro, 85, lives alone in a Torontonursing home.

According to her daughter, she sleeps a lot but when she is awake, she often time-travelsbetween tragic 1963 and the good final years she had with the man who loved her forever.

Ron LaytnerThe Straits Times, Sunday Plus, April 5, 1998.

uicy BaekA New Drug in the Communityby Chris Gunn

Materials:Role-cards

Fact Finding Sheet

Post Activity Discussion

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Purpose and Audience:This role-play is intended for adult intermediate to advanced students.

Warm-up:

Teacher writes 'Juicy Baek' on the board and asks the class if they have heard of Juicy Baek. When theclass says no, the teacher explains that Juicy Baek is a new drug that many young people are using.Juicy Baek is in fact alcohol, BUT DON'T TELL YOUR STUDENTS THAT! Tell the class that there is abig debate in North America about whether or not to make Juicy Baek illegal. Because Juicy Baek is sonew, there are no laws yet. The purpose of the class is to decide how Juicy Baek should be regulated if atall. But first, the students must gather facts and views from different constituencies of society.As a redherring, I tell the class that Juicy Baek is usually injected with a needle. This throws them off track thatJuicy Baek is in fact alcohol. Plus, the fact that it's a needle tends to make even the biggest drinkers turnagainst Juicy Baek.

Class Set-up and Activity:Each member of the class will be given a role-card. They represent the different constituencies of society:the police, sociologists, medical doctors, victims, family members, and Juicy Baek users. The teachergives the class members time to read and absorb their cards. The students can ask the teacher questionsif they don't understand something. Then the teacher takes the role cards away (optional). And studentsstand up and talk to each other and exchange their view points. For example, doctors describe medicalissues related to Juicy Baek such as brain shrinkage and sociologists describe issues such as divorceand violence. Students should be given enough time to talk to most of the other people so that they canget a variety of view points.

Discussion

After view points have been exchanged. Students can get into groups or work as a class and discuss thequestions in the discussion handout. Should Juicy Baek be illegal?

Wrap up:Tell the class that Juicy Baek is in fact alcohol. How does this change their opinion? (Sometimes, before Igive it away, I like to ham it up by explaining that I am in fact a Juicy Baek user. This draws someshocked responses!)