Six Activities for a Reality Show Roleplay

I have always thought that a private language academy offering evening classes to young adults and adults would make a great setting for a reality show. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to get close to a TV producer to sell this scheme. But I was able to make a series of activities about it for the wonderful iT’s for Teachers magazine. iT’s for Teachers was truly one the great resources for me in Spain and I was thrilled when I got the chance to actually write for it myself. Anyway, here is the piece that I did about a series of roleplays that you could do with students, imagining they are part of an exclusive language learning reality show. When I taught these activities many years ago, we would do one activity at the end of each class, making them a bit like a mini episode of a larger roleplay over several classes.

In this roleplay you have to answer some questions and fill out a registration form. The receptionists at Language Academy don’t have the best English. So the questions have errors in them! Try to correct the questions. Then answer them with true information about yourself.

Material needed: a series of ‘get-to-know you’ questions, each with an error in them.

It’s a normal morning at Language Academy and the contestants have walked into their first class. Today the teacher is going to teach them some grammar. She has written an example of the grammar on the board in a typical sentence or group of words. You need to guess what the grammar point is.

Material needed: a series of sample sentences, that each go with a different grammar point.

Everyone loves learning English with songs. In this activity, you are provided with some lyrics and you have to answer a series of questions, such as ‘Is the singer male or female?’; ‘What kind of song is this?’; ‘How does the singer feel? Why do they feel this way?’; ‘Can you write another lyric to the song?’

Material needed: a couple of provocative lyrics from different songs, then the actual songs for students to listen to afterwards

All reality shows have tension and fights. Imagine you overhear one of the following sentences outside a classroom. Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? What’s happening? What is the context?

Material needed: a series of sentences that could be interpreted as part of an argument (e.g. I’ve told you this a million times./ I’m sorry, but this is unacceptable.)

The Language Academy suddenly becomes a Survivor-based show! One afternoon you decide to skip class and hide on the Language Academy grounds. But you don’t see the time go by and when you try to get back in it’s too late! The doors are locked and you are trapped on the grounds! No one hears you bang on the door or shout for help. It’s getting dark. What are you going to do? Look at the following objects. What are they used for? What could they be used for in this situation?

Material needed: a series of everyday objects (e.g. a hair clip, a skateboard, a bottle of cheap perfume, a lighter) that students could talk about how they might use to help them pass the night or get back in to the building.

Participants on the show Language Academy have a confession booth where they can let off steam. In this activity you need to record yourself talking about things that bother you about the classes in the academy.

Material needed: a series of sentences beginning with phrases like The thing that really bothers me here is…, What drives me crazy is… It’s the…that gets on my nerves.

You could add other mini roleplays here, but I think you get the idea. Of course, this does require some preparation on your part to make the roleplays. Or you could use the actual material that I wrote and that I’m making freely available here as a download below!

This is from an issue of the magazine which is pretty old (and out of print) so some of the activities (e.g. the multimedia quiz) might need updating. But it looks cool!