Lost your Voice

This is like a role-play activity with no dialogue! It needs a little bit of preparation time for you to write out the ‘problem cards’. You can imagine any scenario where functional language would be used, such as at the train station, in a restaurant or at the shops. Set the scene by telling the students where they are.

For this example they are staying in a hotel. One member of the team has lost their voice and has to communicate various problems to the hotel receptionist so he/ she can get it fixed.

Ask one member of each team to be the mime artist and give them a ‘problem card’ with a problem on. You can vary the language level of the problem depending on your students. It could be as simple as ‘The TV doesn’t work’ or ‘the window is broken’ or a bit more complex like, ‘the shower in my room doesn’t have any hot water.’ This is what they must communicate to the hotel receptionists through mime.

Their team members play the role of hotel receptionists and must guess what the student is trying to say.

To make it more challenging and to revise functional language the students should guess what is written on the card word for word to win a point, e.g. "Could you help me please? The key to my room doesn’t open the door.