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Mix it up and try some of these different scenarios.

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How many times have you done that same old restaurant role play?

How about the one where people are waiting in line? The post office one?

Role plays help your students overcome the stage fright they experience when using English. The themes can sometimes seem mundane, though.

You can shake up your role play activities by putting your students in bizarre situations, offering them weird personalities to portray and planting seeds of peculiar themes of conversation.

These weird role plays not only break up the routine, they also help distract your students from timidity when practicing. Just remind them, weird people have conversations too!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Location: Participants are visiting or working on the International Space Station.

Personalities: Astronauts, of course, but add other types of people who might end up on the space station, such as:

A school teacher invited to give science lessons from space

A common man who has won the visit in a lottery

Someone brought sunflower seeds to munch on and they're floating everywhere

A piece of disgusting space garbage is floating outside the window

An old TV remote (Communication device)

A pocket watch (Calibration device)

Critical language (Who brings a bag of seeds into space anyway?)

Descriptive language (It's long and green, it's got three eyes, it looks like...)

Instructional language (Try turning it to the left, you need to open the lid like this...)

Police (Chasing those criminals, or searching for someone who's lost)

Questions (Did you look under the control panel? When was the last time you saw it?)

The lights suddenly go out

Water begins rising rapidly
Language Used:
Directional language (Turn left here! We should retrace our steps...)

Hypothetical language (It could be rats. That might be sewer water. We might find a way out...)

Emotional language (I'm really scared! Don't worry, we'll be fine. Be brave!)

A couple of friends on vacation to an exotic country

A native presenting a foreign guest to local cuisine

Reading the menu together and reacting, trying to decide

Asking the waiter to describe dishes that have ambiguous names

Sending plates back to the kitchen

Descriptive language (Describing foods that are disgusting in an attractive manner)

Persuasive language (Convincing clients to try something that might seem unappealing at first)

Expression of surprise/disgust language (Oh my gosh, that's really nasty! What on earth is that supposed to be? You don't expect me to eat that, do you?)

Owners of a competing freaky fast food restaurant checking out the fare

A very elderly and wealthy man has been murdered and the suspects are his young wife, his stepson and, of course, the butler.

The city's largest bank has been heisted. You've got three suspects, a bank clerk, an elderly sweet grandma type and a sketchy, unemployed guy.

You'll need a number of personality cards.
Language Used:
Leading questions (Why did you do it? Where were you at the time of the crime?)

Answering questions / avoiding answering

Denial language (I didn't do it! I wasn't there! I don't know what you're talking about!)

Past tense (I was in another place. I was doing something else at the time.)

Survey meant to attract people to join an organization (A community group, a religious sect, a pyramid scheme)

Survey meant to canvass for a particular product (Try our new chocolate bar and give your opinion; answer a few questions about your car insurance)

Political survey meant to first find out who the participant is going to vote for and then convince them to vote for the other guy/gal

Reaction cards (You're in a hurry; You hate surveys; You're very argumentative)
Language Used:
Questions / Answers (More information questions than simple yes/no questions)

Avoidance language (I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry. I don't have time right now. I've got to pick up my daughter at her dance class.)

A 200-story office building

A zipper elevator (as in the St. Louis Arch)

A nasty boss stuck with a timid employee

Two people who've just gotten divorced

One of the riders has pressed the Stop button

There has been an earthquake
Language Used:
Argument language (It's your fault! What have you done now? Isn't this a fine mess you've gotten us into? If it wasn't for you...)

Anxiety language (Oh dear, are they ever going to rescue us? I've got to get out of here!)

Suggestion language (Push the intercom button again. Try pushing "Open Doors.")

A religious zealot with a Goth

A loud, obnoxious person with a timid person

An elderly person with a teenager

You are always right and everyone else is always wrong
Language Used:
"Getting to know you" questions/answers (Where are you from? What do you like to do in your free time? What do your think of current event / famous person ? Who's your favorite singer?)

Making excuses (Well, it's been nice, but...; I've really had a good time, but I've got to go now; It's getting late, I should be on my way...)

You are really loud and obnoxious

You are a calm, timid person

You are 102 / 17 years old
FluentU takes real-world videos-like music videos, cartoons, documentaries and more-and turns them into personalized language learning lessons for you and your students.
Two strong-willed people who never agree with anyone else

There has been an extraterrestrial invasion

Two people with claustrophobia

Cold presentation (Cold greeting, quick presentation, participant capture)

One red card or token that you give to the guilty person (The cops only suspect, they don't know who's guilty!)

Evidence that the cops can slap down on the table

The border police have stopped a person trying to enter the country with an unusual story.
Revel Arroway taught ESL for 30 years before retiring into Teacher Training. His blog, Interpretive ESL, offers insights into language teaching, simplifying the classroom, language class activities and general thoughts on ESL teaching.
Strange, out-of-place noises are heard
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There are lots of crawly things

A textbook (Handbook for fixing something on the station)

Someone sees an ET out the window

Cabin pressure drops and everyone has to find ways to fix the problem

Someone has lost something really big or small (not many places it could be!)

Situations: Being enclosed on a vehicle that travels at thousands of miles an hour at zero gravity can lead to some pretty odd situations:

Preparation: Pick some odd things from your bag of props and encourage your students to pretend they are items appropriate to the locale and situation:

Language Used: Depending on the situation you present, your students may be able to use:

Location: Your students have strayed from the guided tour of the Catacombs of Paris into uncharted tunnels, full of humidity, bones, rats and spiderwebs.

Personalities: Besides the usual tourist guides and tourists, you could find a variety of other types of people wandering through the catacombs:

Situations: Catacombs are cold, dark, humid places, and those of Paris are known for being a labyrinth. Some of the situations your students experience could include:

Preparation: Again, the prop bag can provide you with items that can serve you. You'll probably want at least one flashlight, maybe with really weak batteries, so you can turn out the lights and create an eerie atmosphere.

Location: A fast food restaurant that happens to serve truly unusual and somewhat disgusting food.

Personalities: Because the place and the food is so weird, the people can actually be pretty normal:

Situations: The situation is reacting to food that isn't familiar. This shouldn't be hard, as many students may find a foreign country's food to be somewhat weird. Role play situations can be:

Preparation: Set up a table as in a restaurant, or maybe an order counter as in a burger place. Your students can create odd menus, based upon bizarre foods you've introduced earlier, or they can use their imaginations and create entirely made-up food options.

Language Used: Besides usual restaurant language (ordering, paying, complaining), you could have students practice:

Location: A small, claustrophobia-inducing room with a table and two or three chairs.

Personalities: As in any crime drama, there will be cops and suspects. Some of the suspects may be guilty, some may be innocent:

Situations: Nearly any crime will suit for this role play, though you'll want to be sensitive to your students and keep the details within cultural expectations.

Preparation: This role play will take a bit of teacher and student preparation. Begin by finding short videos of interrogations from crime films. Point out the different parts of the interrogation, as described in the informative link above.

Location: You've been there before. You're walking down the street, someone comes at you with a clipboard and a smile and asks you if you have a few minutes to take a "quick" survey.

Personalities: The principle character will be the person taking the survey. The other participant will be any personality walking down the street, who should answer according to the character they've been assigned.

Situations: Surveys abound. Some of the most common surveys include:

Preparation: This role play can be prepared by the students. Giving them different survey topics, have them develop five to ten questions for a street survey. Generate as many different kinds of survey as students, shifting the topics to stimulate their imaginations. Go over these surveys with the entire class so they become familiar with the questions.

You'll also want:

Location: An elevator, obviously. You can suggest that the elevator be in any number of buildings:

Personalities: Because the people are going to be trapped in a very small space, the most fun can be had if there's some previous conflict between the participants:

Situations: Besides the conflict, how the elevator gets stuck will add to improvisation possibilities:

Preparation: Start by chalking or taping a small rectangle on the floor to outline the dimensions of the elevator. This is the space the participants can't move out of. Other props can be chosen from the prop bag if appropriate to the personalities.

Location: Participants are being filmed for a reality show while being on a blind date in a nice restaurant-a date which was arranged by a computer matchmaking service that purports to hook up perfect couples for eternal love and relationships. What your students won't know (but will begin to suspect!) is that the computer program couples people with opposing personalities.

Personalities: These can be normal personalities, but you'll want to couple them according to how incompatible they can actually turn out to be:

Situations: The situations in this role play will emerge from the conflict of two opposing personalities assuming they've been perfectly matched and finding out that that's not the case. As they "get to know each other," they should gradually discover that the computer has made a huge mistake.

Preparation: Set up your restaurant scene, table and two chairs, cutlery and glasses. While you can use your standard personality cards, you may want to prepare additional cards that add a conflict aspect:

These aren't your standard role plays, and you may have to put more effort into preparing for them. Most can take advantage of general language that your students have practiced in the past.

What makes these situations different is that, while using the same language, students concentrate more on the wacky situation than how they're speaking. That should bring some healthy laughter into the classroom and add to the creative use of those structures and vocabulary that might have been getting a little too routine.

And One More Thing...

Searching for fun, authentic videos to introduce your students to English conversation? Check out FluentU!

It's got a huge collection of authentic English videos that people in the English-speaking world actually watch on the regular. There are tons of great choices there when you're looking for songs for in-class activities. You'll find music videos, musical numbers from cinema and theater, kids' singalongs, commercial jingles and much, much more.

On FluentU, all the videos are sorted by skill level and are carefully annotated for students. Words come with example sentences and definitions. Students will be able to add them to their own vocabulary lists, and even see how the words are used in other videos.

For example, if a student taps on the word "brought," they'll see this:

Plus, these great videos are all accompanied by interactive features and active learning tools for students, like multimedia flashcards and fun games like "fill in the blank."

It's perfect for in-class activities, group projects and solo homework assignments. Not to mention, it's guaranteed to get your students excited about English!

The full FluentU video library is available on any computer or tablet, and users can even download the app at the iTunes and Google Play store.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere.Click here to get a copy. (Download)

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.

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7 Weirdly Fun ESL Role Play Ideas That Students Love

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How many times have you done that same old restaurant role play? How about the one where people are waiting in line? The post office one? Role plays help your students overcome the stage fright they experience when using English. The themes can sometimes seem mundane, though.

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This has a variety of videos for learning English...

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Your Personal English Teacher - Live Lessons 24/7

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Level up your English in 3 Months with EnglishCentral Difference - Professional Tutors and AI-Powered Chatbot.

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Learning a language is much easier when you're enjoying yourself - and what better way to pass the time than watching movies (with a tub of popcorn in hand, of course)! But do blockbusters use bad English? Are indie movies too complicated and use too many strange words? To help you out, here's a list of movies I think are the most effective (and entertaining) for helping you learn English.

OK, so everyone's already seen this - and if not, shame on you. It's the perfect movie for learning some slightly complicated scientific words in a thoroughly entertaining context. It also happens to be my favourite film ever. Call me biased.

If you're not sure whether to learn British or American English, this movie offers both in one perfect romantic comedy package. Set in London, it follows a nerdy bookshop owner who falls in love with an American movie star. The ending will make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

With a 90s revival in full swing, the best way to brush up on your retro teen slang is with , set in a Los Angeles high school and featuring some of the most iconic fashions of the 1993-1996 era. Fun fact: it's based on the novel by Jane Austen.

Easy-to-understand American accent? Check. Jennifer Lawrence? Check. Handsome male lead? Check. Tension-filled fight scenes? Mega check. If you're a fan of sci-fi adventures with some romance and post-apocalyptic politics thrown in for good measure, get watching.

5. The King's Speech (2010)

Quite conveniently, this film focuses on England's King George, who had to overcome a speech impediment to deliver a speech to the British people - so it's not only entertaining but there's actually a whole pronunciation lesson in there too. Win!

Keeping the royal theme, you can learn some seriously refined British English accents in this movie based on the UK Royal Family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana. Full of drama, expensive sets and actress Helen Mirren doing her best impression of the Queen (and her very posh accent!).

One of the world's most famous and iconic films, The Wizard of Oz is one of those movies you can't say you've never seen. The story follows a girl called Dorothy, transported to a magical world which she's destined to save. There are also songs, which is always nice.

Not only is the English in Men in Black really easy to understand, it's also relatable (as far as secret agents hunting aliens goes, at least). Will Smith stars as the lead, using language that's clear but also totally hip and cool because, you know, he's Will Smith.

This is a scary one, so if you're not a horror movie fan, probably best to give this one a miss. A woman and her young son find a creepy book about a monster called The Babadook - then weird things start happening in their house. On the plus side, it's all in Australian accents.

New Zealand is known for its horror comedies, and this is one of the best - a movie about werewolves, except instead of wolves the monsters are sheep. Weird, I know. But not only will you refine your New Zealand accent, you'll also learn about the country's farming culture.

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10 best movies to learn English with - EF Blog

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Learning a language is much easier when you're enjoying yourself - and what better way to pass the time than watching movies (with a tub of popcorn in hand, of course)! But do blockbusters use bad English? Are indie movies too complicated and use too many strange words?

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TWO FILMS: PRECIOUS and THE BLIND SIDE - a study in privilege and inequity.

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TWO FILMS: PRECIOUS and THE BLIND SIDE - a study in privilege and inequity.

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This is a very interesting NY Times article. During my search for English Language Learning via film, I had a difficult time trying to find movies that were diverse. So, I am on a search for that.

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It is not only that family's cultural and political allegiances that make "The Blind Side" something like a red state version of "Precious." The Tuohys are wealthy white Southerners who send their children to a Christian private school and who treat college football (in particular when Ole Miss is involved) as a second religion. When Michael's tutor, played by Kathy Bates, confesses her party affiliation to the Tuohys, Leigh Anne's husband, Sean (played by Tim McGraw, who lends the movie further regional bona fides) wonders, "Who would have thought we'd have a black son before we met a Democrat?"

Who indeed? Or, for that matter, at least when audiences hear this line, a black president (who is also a Democrat). This movie's generally warm, honest portrayal of Southern whites - a group that tends to be either sentimentalized or sneered at in movies and on television - is one of its striking features. Another is its thorough if somewhat understated conservatism. To the extent that Michael represents a social problem (or maybe a whole bunch of them, including poverty, drug addiction and family dysfunction), the solution depicted is individual, charitable and, at least implicitly, faith based.

Some of Leigh Anne's friends wonder if she is helping Michael out of a sense of "white guilt," a notion she laughs off without entirely dispelling. Whatever her deeper motives, her actions are fairly radical. After figuring out that Michael, who attends school with her children, is homeless, Leigh Anne offers him a bed for the night. Eventually she and Sean become his legal guardians and the leaders of a group - including their children, Michael's football coach, tutor and teachers - committed to helping the young man succeed.

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), for her part, benefits from a similar support network. She finds her way into an alternative school program for at-risk girls, and blossoms in the friendship of her peers and the patient encouragement of her teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton). The school secretary (played by the comedian and talk show host Sherri Shepherd) and a kindly male nurse (Lenny Kravitz) also help Precious, as does Ms. Weiss, the social worker played by Mariah Carey. Unlike the private charity of the Tuohys, the kindness of the nurses and teachers who help Precious is sanctioned and supported by the state.

It may be something of an inside joke that Precious claims to be unable to determine Ms. Weiss's ethnicity, given the similar enigma surrounding Ms. Carey's background. But one notable difference between Precious's benefactors and Michael Oher's is that Michael's are virtually all white.

There is an older male relative who engineers Michael's admission to the school where Leigh Anne discovers him, but he disappears almost entirely from the movie, resurfacing briefly at graduation. There are brief scenes with Michael's mother and one of his brothers, but the world he knew before the Tuohys is rendered in a flurry of broad strokes and is represented by a leering, violent drug dealer who offers himself as an alternative to Leigh Anne. The only nonunderclass black person is the N.C.A.A. official who shows up near the end to threaten the football scholarship that the Tuohys have done so much to help Michael earn.

"Precious" has been lauded for its honesty, and also faulted for its extreme, pathologizing depiction of black family life. African-American writers have been on both sides of this argument, and also in the middle. Armond White, the great contrarian of American film criticism (and the chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle) accused "Precious" of trafficking in "racist hysteria disguised as social sensitivity," and compared what he saw as its misrepresentations of African-American life to those in D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation."

Raina Kelley, in an essay in Newsweek, took a more ambivalent, less incendiary view, noting that the movie's intense focus on an individual's terrible story blunted its potential to make a larger statement. "I wish I could agree with those who say 'Precious' is just one more movie that feeds our vision of ourselves as victims," she wrote. "Even that would have been better than what lies underneath: the fact that black people have begun to accept as unchangeable the lot of those stuck in the ghetto."

And this is a critique that might extend to "The Blind Side" as well. Both movies tell stories that suggest a way out of poverty, brutality and domestic calamity for certain lucky individuals while saying very little about how those conditions might be changed. For all their differences, they ultimately occupy a common ground that is both optimistic and, at the same time, curiously defeatist. Both locate the problems facing their main characters in the failure of families - of mothers in particular - and find solutions in better families, substitute mothers (Ms. Rain and Leigh Anne), whose selflessness and loyalty exorcise the biological monsters who have been left behind. The fact that "The Blind Side" is based on a true story lends credibility to this sentimental idea.

Left or right, black or white, Americans love happy endings. Overcoming adversity is our national pastime, especially when it can also be a spectator sport. And we love stories of heroic educators, coaches and moms - Michelle Pfeiffer in "Dangerous Minds," Edward James Olmos in "Stand and Deliver" - who change the lives of poor, marginalized children by teaching them hard work and self esteem. Let me be clear: I'm not disparaging either "Precious" or "The Blind Side," even though I think "Precious" is a much better movie. They are both sincere and serious, and if they serendipitously share a premise, they also share a blind spot, which is hardly theirs alone.

At the end of "Precious" the heroine shoulders her burden and sets off to make her way in the world, a conclusion that may be objectively bleak - Precious is an H.I.V.-positive teenage mother who has only recently learned to read and write - but that fills the audience with a sense of hard-won redemption. We believe she will be all right because we would rather believe that than confront the failures of institutions, programs and collective will that leave so many other Preciouses unrescued.

Michael Oher, at the end of "The Blind Side," fares rather better, but the film concludes with a reminder of what might have been, as Leigh Anne peruses newspaper accounts of young men from his part of Memphis killed by gang violence. She wonders why he was so much more fortunate, modestly declining to mention her own role and thereby deflecting attention from the movie's curious moral, which is that the best hope for a poor black child in America is to have rich white parents.

Correction: November 29, 2009

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'Precious' and 'The Blind Side,' Two Routes From Poverty

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It is not only that family's cultural and political allegiances that make "The Blind Side" something like a red state version of "Precious." The Tuohys are wealthy white Southerners who send their children to a Christian private school and who treat college football (in particular when Ole Miss is involved) as a second religion.

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A STUDY IN PRONUNCIATION - how to carry and elongate the vowels.  Poem written and read by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies.

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Edna St. Vincent Millay reads "Childhood Is The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies"

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HARRY POTTER - Delaying Subtitle Display

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HARRY POTTER - Delaying Subtitle Display

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A movie clip from HARRY POTTER - this clip is a lesson on learning English through media manipulation - mainly delaying the subtitles (mouth and language will be out of sync) so that you can take more time to read and understand what is going on

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How to Learn English with Movies New Technique

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Uploaded by Sherwan ramze on 2017-06-13.

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THE BLIND SIDE - a view in socio-economic disparity

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THE BLIND SIDE - a view in socio-economic disparity

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This is a really good movie to watch for foundation level students. I have a whole book on lesson plans regarding this movie - pronunciation, vocabulary building, comprehension and listening techniques, and more.

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Learn/Practice English with MOVIES (Lesson #3) Title: The Blind Side

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This is a great movie to watch for enriching vocabulary. It might be a bit out of date for younger students, but the older students might appreciate it more.

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Learn English Through Movie With Subtitles | Vocabulary Lessons 650 - 659 | Charade Story | ESL

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Learn English through movie with subtitles focuses on vocabulary lessons by http://www.learn-to-speak-english-esl.com/. The pleasant Charade story features film scenes that provide English Second Language (ESL) students with enjoyable multi-skilled learning. These 10 vocabulary lessons are free demonstrations from the Learn English With A Classic Movie Program on sale at http://www.learn-to-speak-english-esl.com/buy-english-second-language-programs.html.

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PHOTOGRAPH EXHIBITING GESTURE - physicalizing and embodying language

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PHOTOGRAPH EXHIBITING GESTURE - physicalizing and embodying language

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ESL Students performing a scene from Ellen McLaughlin's, THE GREEKS, Clytemnestra and Other Daughters.  The students are acting out the characters of Electra and Clytemnestra.  I have several photographs and film clips showing how students are embodying the language.  (I am missing my film/video clips - I think they are on a different computer - have to do a search for them)

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Photograph: ESL Student - performing a monologue from THE GREEKS, Clytemnestra and Other Daughters.  The student is playing Electra.