Beauty Inc
Materials
This is a role play I wrote up. It centers on a company that has defective products and is now in trouble with some very famous people as well as the press. The roleplay itself takes the form of a press conference with members of the company, angry customers, and journalists present. I find this lesson works well with advanced students but weaker students will find it hard.There are 12 roles. If you have fewer than 12 students, the roles in order of importance, in my opinion, are:
- President
- Mercedes Richgirl
- Minister Coolson
- Chief Financial Officer
- Mary Simple
- Journalist One
- Press Officer
- Journalist Three
- Journalist Two
- Vice President
- Press Assistant
- Professor Smartovich
It's important to have an equal number of pro- and anti-company people. The VP and Professor Smartovich are sort of fun add-ons for complexity and the Press Assistant, who runs the meeting can be played by you, the teacher. If you have more than 12 students you might want to divide them equally into pro- and anti- company camps and have them write their own roles, with their own arguments or complaints.
As with any role play, it's important to make sure people get the situation. Then give them a lot of time to think of how they will play their role. Encourage them to write down key phrases they might use and not to just read the card.
If students are very active, you might not need to help them when the role play gets started. Or you may want to control the flow by calling on people. It worked well when I called on everyone to give an opening statement and wrote on the board some of the more provocative language--the President says it's the customer's fault. The Minister is going to arrest the President. And so on. Then I let them go at it.
As a closing discussion, I usually talk about defective products and ask people if they have ever bought anything that didn't work, what they did about it, what kinds of rights and responsibilities customers have, what role the government should play. We also sometimes get into false advertising, and brand identity.
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