This is a series of engaging role-plays based on the concept of the gap year / a round the world trip. The activities motivate the students to persuade and argue in a light-hearted manner. There are a series of five small role-plays and this activity works best with intermediate students.

Preparation
Download and make copies of the role-play cards. You'll need one set for each group of three students. You might like to pre-teach some structures for expressing and asking for opinions.

Role-play cards 53 k

Procedure

• Elicit or explain the concept of a gap year (between university and school) and ask students what they'd like to do if they had a free year.

• Elicit travelling and hang up a large map of the world.

• Tell the students they have a round-the-world air ticket valid for a year and they are going to go on an imaginary tour around the world with two friends.

• Put the students into groups of three.

• Hang a world map on the board (or a globe) and ask each group to discuss where they'd like to go.

• Get the students in their groups to think about any problems that might occur with such a trip. For example, language, arguments over accommodation, where to go etc.

• Tell the students they are now in the country they chose and they have to act out their roles as described in the cue cards.

• Give your students a minute to read their cue cards and then take them in. The students then carry out role-play 1. Listen and make notes of any vocabulary or pronunciation problems.

• Do plenary feedback with each group to see if they stayed in an expensive or cheap hotel etc.

• Do the other role-plays with quick feedback from each group and a little work on any language problems they have had each time.

Jeff Fowler, Teacher, Trainer, British Council Naples

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