Neighborhood Party: Teacher's Notes

[Main page] [Role cards] [Gossip sheet] [Vocab sheet]
Activity type Role play, information search
Number of students 12 is best, 5 is probably too few, and 24 is probably too many.
Functions: Introducing oneself, asking for and giving personal information politely, excusing oneself.
Lexical area Jobs, pastimes, and ambitions.
Grammar: Present Simple, Present Continuous, Present Perfect, future tenses
Target phrases: I've been a ...(job)...for ...(length of time)...now.
A: What do you do for a living? B: I'm a ... (occupation).
A: What do you do in your spare time? B: I ...(present simple verb).
A: What are you planning to do in the future? B: I hope to...
A: I'm ...(present continuous verb for a work activity)...right now. I'm trying to ... (present simple verb giving ambition). I'm (pretty happy or not very happy) with my present situation....
Meaningless but polite responses to feign interest like, "that's interesting."

Game idea

The situation is a neighborhood party in a pretty eclectic neighborhood (perhaps San Francisco, California). Everyone in the neighborhood has been invited. Most people know each other by sight but have never been introduced. Since nobody at the party knows anyone else they have to mingle, introduce themselves politely, and get to know each other. They know a little bit about their neighbors already. As much as has passed door to door as gossip. The facts that they already know are written down on the gossip sheet. The goal of the game is to get to know your neighbors and find out who the gossip pertains to. You'll want to find out about their jobs, what they do in their free time, and what their plans for the future are.

Setting up the game

Photocopy enough neighbor cards, gossip sheets, and vocabulary sheets for all the students in the class. The role play card and the vocabulary sheet should be passed out one class ahead of time, so that the students can familiarize themselves with the vocabulary that might be used during the activity and also so they can round out their character by elaborating on (inventing additional facts) beyond what is given on the role card. This might even be given as a writing assignment at home. They should also think about the questions they're going to ask and the answers they might give.

Playing the game

Pass out the gossip sheets and explain to them that they know that each fact listed on the sheet is true about someone in the neighborhood. The goal is to find the name of the person that it applies to. There are also spaces on the worksheet for job, pastimes, and future plans. Whether you actually have students write this information down is up to you. The sheet can also just serve as a reminder to ask the neighbor about this.

Source This game was inspired by Jill Hadfield's "Chit-chat" in Elementary Communication Games (Longman, 1984) and Lloyd and Preier's "Find a colleague who..." in Business Communication Games (Oxford University Press, 1996)

Game Components



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