Speaking activity: "Going to a Restaurant in the UK"

Hello, everyone!

My name is Sergi Dot and this is the activity I have designed in order to develop speaking skills. Since the topic of our blog revolves around food, this activity aims at giving the students the necessary tools to be able to go to a restaurant in an English-speaking country and order their food, book a table, ask for the bill, etc. This is vocabulary that the students are likely to know already, but the idea is that the students put everything into practice.

The learning objectives of the activity are:

a) Be able to book a table in a restaurant.
b) Become familiar with the most recurrent sentences used by waiters.
c) Be able to order their food in an appropriate way.
d) Be able to follow and hold a conversation with a waiter in the appropriate register.

The activity has been developed by using Audacity, which is a great technological tool for students to practise both their speaking and listening skills.

"Going to a Restaurant in the UK" consists of two parts:

1) Listen and repeat part: The students are presented first with some of the most typical sentences used when booking a table, then they listen to some sentences that waiters usually use in the context of a restaurant, and finally they are provided with sample sentences that customers use when ordering their meals. The students are required to listen to the sentences carefully in order to get the correct pronunciation, and then they have a few seconds to repeat what they have listened to.

2) The idea is that students work in groups of 3 or 4 so that one of them has to act as a waiter or waitress, another student has to talk on the phone to book a table, and the others have to order their food. Below you can access the recording, which contains the first part and the instructions for the students to carry out the role-play activity.

We hope you find this activity useful!