describing a restaurant menu

This is simple activity for learners to practise describing food. It’s also a great opportunity to explore intercultural differences around the topic of food.

The dishes mentioned below are based on what you might see on a British Pub menu – of course you use your own ideas.

1. First of all, you create a simple menu and write to the board. I recommend you choose three starters, three main courses and three desserts. For example in class we had:  Starters – Greek Salad, Prawn Cocktail, Bruschetta  Main courses – Roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding, Bangers and Mash, Vegetable and Spinach lasagna; Desserts – Sticky Toffee Pudding, Banana Split, Tiramisu
2. Next, ask learners if they know what any of the dishes are, if so they can try to describe them, if not you can describe them. Ask learners if they have ever tried any of the dishes before and whether they liked them or not.
3. Then, learners write their own menus based on dishes they know of, perhaps from their own countries. They could write the names of the dishes in their own languages
4. After that, learners work in pairs asking each other about their menus and describing the food to each other – then pairs feedback about some of the interesting dishes they found out about to class (perhaps each student choose one dish to talk about)
5. Later – you could use the learner created menus for work on restaurant dialogues, then you could extend to work on recipes and cooking.

question and answer grids

By Richard Gresswell from ELTbites

I use grids like this in my lesson, drawn to the board and copied by students on paper. Grids can be useful in structuring question and answer activities.

The lesson below is one I’ve used many times with beginner and basic literacy classes.

Information	Question??	Shaheen	Fatima	Yousuf	Birhane
Address
Postcode	e.g. What’s your postcode?	LS3 1AA
Tel. Number

1. First of all, on the board draw a grid – An example is shown above, learners copy the table and fill in the names for the people in their group of four. If they are not sure how to spell the names they could ask each other – ‘Can you spell that please?’
2. Next, elicit or give question for each information item i.e. address, postcode, tel. number in this case.
3. Then, you can work on pronunciation of the question forms e.g. focussing on word stress e.g. What’s your postcode?
4. After that, learners work in small groups asking each other and answering the questions and recording the answers in the grid,  feedback to class.
5. Later – Of course this simple Q and A activity can be used at any level for any topic, but I have found it really useful with entry levels for focusing on question forms, listening to answers and spelling out loud.

Popular pastimes in your country

By Richard Gresswell from ELTbites

A lesson activity for discussing popular pastimes in the UK followed by the learners talking about popular pastimes in their countries and what they personally do in their free-time

1. First of all, write on the board a list of popular pastimes in your country, for example (in the UK): DIY, gardening, going to the pub, bird watching, watching TV, driving, sport, reading, rambling.
2. Next, ask students what they know about these pastimes – students discuss in pairs/groups then feedback to class.
3. Then, learners choose a pastime from board and write down three questions to ask you to find out more.
4. After that, discuss with learners the different pastimes using the questions. Then students make a list of  most popular pastimes in their country – discuss in groups / class. Learners talk about what they do in their free-time.
5. Later, learners  could carry out a class survey about the learners’ use of free-time, survey results could be written in the form of an article.