Talk English Friends: Session 1
Menu of activities
The aim of this session is to identify the potential barriers faced by people who don’t speak
English well or at all, to experience some of the feelings and difficulties they may experience first
hand and to identify ways of communicating better.
Select activities from the menu to suit you and your group and timings. Each session should be
2.5 hours including a break.
NB: There are more activities than you have time for!
Activity
Suggestions for use
Timing
1.
Icebreaker:
Say what you see!
15 mins
2a.
Ways your
learners may
differ:
Brainstorm
Potential barriers:
Learner profiles
Put a large copy of the ‘Say what you see!’ worksheet
on each table. As volunteers arrive, get them to work
together in groups to identify the phrase.
Facilitate feedback and get the volunteers to reflect on
idioms- why might they be difficult for speakers of other
languages?
Get volunteers to brainstorm the ways learners may
differ.
Facilitate feedback and discuss differences in more
detail.
Put volunteers into groups. Give each group a learner
profile and a blank table to complete about the learner.
Volunteers then share knowledge about the learners
country of origin, language etc and identify the potential
barriers or difficulties the learner may face.
Get each group to present their thoughts to the rest of
the group.
Give out or show pictures of different countries (for a
selection of Creative Commons images from Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Somalia, Afghanistan etc, see
http://www.pinterest.com/TalkEnglishReg/placesaround-the-world/)
Get volunteers to brainstorm the differences (and/or
similarities) between life in these countries and life in
the UK, with reference to the political situation,
economy and culture.
Facilitate a group discussion.
Get volunteers to brainstorm potential barriers to crosscultural communication.
Facilitate feedback and discuss potential barriers in
more detail.
Cut up the ‘Other Languages: languages, scripts and
countries’. Select an appropriate number of examples
according to time, group and other languages spoken
in a specific area.
In groups, volunteers match languages to scripts and
identify where the languages are spoken.
Trainer facilitates feedback.
Instruct the volunteers to copy words in a different
script. Find out if anyone knows what language it is
(Thai) and what it says (Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday).
Facilitate a group discussion about the experience of
Talk English
2b.
2c.
Life in other
countries:
Group discussion
2d.
Barriers to crosscultural
communication:
Brainstorm
Other Languages:
Language, script
and country
(matching task)
3a.
3b.
Other Languages:
Writing in an
different script
10 mins
30 mins
15 mins
15 mins
10 mins
20 mins
Talk English Friends: Session 1
Activity
3c.
Other Languages:
Learning an
unknown language
(microteach)
4a.
Better
communication:
Is it direct,
straightforward or
specific?
4b.
Better
communication:
Top tips for
effective
communication
Better
communication:
Role-playing
effective
communication
4c.
Talk English
5.
Learning log:
What have you
learned today?
Suggestions for use
writing in an unfamiliar script and what would have
made it easier. Elicit things Friends should consider
when supporting someone to write in an unfamiliar
script.
Deliver a microteach in a language of their choice. All
instructions should be in the unknown language to
echo how ESOL courses are delivered.
Suggested target language for 15 minutes:
Hello
What’s your name?
My name is…
Goodbye
Volunteers reflect on their experience.
Put volunteers into groups and hands out 1 or 2 speech
bubbles to each group.
Volunteers read and discuss each example and identify
why it might be confusing for people with low level
language skills and suggest ways of making it simpler.
Facilitate feedback by getting volunteers to informally
present their example(s), identifying why it’s confusing
and what would make the meaning clearer.
Cut up the do’s and don’ts.
Volunteers work in groups to decide which are dos or
don’t.
Facilitate feedback and identifies more dos and don’ts
through discussion
Demonstrate an example of bad communication (e.g.
filling in a form with learners with low level language).
Elicit why it was bad.
Volunteers practise the same role-play, but modelling
good communication with learners with low level
language skills
Elicit what volunteers have learned or got out of the
session and review session outcomes.
Volunteers complete a learning log at the end of the
session.
Timing
15 mins
+5 mins
reflection
20 mins
15 mins
20 mins
10 mins