Busy Talk
Learning Outcomes
In this quick activity, pairs of students will practice customer service interactions. They will play at using
appropriate language for business interactions and resolving conflicts.
Grade Level: 6-12
Standards-based Content Objectives
 Theatre; Script writing by planning and improvising, writing and refining scripts based on personal
experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history—Students will create a script based on
their impressions about on-the-job interactions. You will review the script and show them where
their knowledge needs work.
 Theatre; other requirements—In writing and acting out a play about conflict resolution between
workers and their customers, students fulfill most of the National Educational Standards for
Theatre.
Teacher Planning
This lesson requires two 45-minute class periods.
Materials Needed for Activity
 Access to CareerNoodle
 Writing materials
Lesson Details
Guiding Questions
 What’s the best way to handle a conflict with a customer in a business setting?
 How can I be polite with an angry person?
 Acting: How can I pretend to be enraged during a customer service interaction?
 Is it hilarious to pretend to be an angry customer? Why is it so fun?
Teacher Instruction/ Student Activity
1. Give students copies of the Busy Talk worksheet and have them divide into pairs.
2. The worksheet will prompt them to use Career Noodle to find a career which commonly interacts
with customers in person or over the phone.
3. Each pair will write a two-part script in which one of them roleplays a person with that career while
the other student pretends to be a customer. The script should include at least two major conflict
resolutions so that the students can switch and play each role.
4. The conflicts could involve questions that the customer has for the worker, an issue that the
customer has with a good or service provided by the customer, or the customer’s failure to pay for
a good or service. These conflicts should end happily after some struggle because either the
customer or worker uses respect, patience, compromise, and logical decision-making to resolve the
conflict.
5. This script should include polite language, terms and details appropriate to the career and the
goods or services that it provides. Students can obtain this information from Career Noodle and
other resources.
6. Each pair should perform their skit for the class, answer questions, and receive comments about
their performance.
Assessment
Students who exceed the lesson objectives will:
 Work closely with their partner to create an entertaining and informative script that satisfies the lesson’s
requirements for conflict resolution
 Speak clearly, engage the class, and work with their partners during performance
 Participate with meaningful questions in the Q&A session following each performance
Students who meet the lesson objectives will:
 Create a script that addresses the lesson’s requirements
 Perform confidently and speak clearly
 Participate with at least one question in the Q&A session following each performance
Students who do not meet the lesson objectives will:
 Create an overly brief script or one that does not meet the lesson’s requirements
 Perform too quietly; avoid engagement with the audience
 Not participate during Q&A
Wrap-up Activities
The class might create a larger career play involving conflict resolution on different levels of a corporation (e.g. a
customer complaint makes its way to the CEO who changes company policy).
Worksheet (see next page)
Busy Talk
All top companies derive their strength from successful interactions between employees and
customers. You and a partner will write a skit in which you role-play conflict resolution between a worker
and a customer. Find your partner.
Before writing, you should decide which career the worker will have and thus what goods or
services the worker will provide. Head onto Career Noodle and find a job involving customer interaction
that you and your partner would both enjoy role-playing. What is the job called, what are some of its
characteristics, and what does it do for customers?
Now that you know which job you’ll be roleplaying, it’s time to write the skit. The skit should be a
business interaction between the career type you chose and a customer. Include at least two incidents of
conflict resolution in which the customer has an issue with the worker which the worker has to resolve.
The worker should use polite language, respect, patience, and compromise to deal with the conflict while
salvaging the customer’s desire to do business with the company.
The conflict can be derived from the company’s failure to provide goods or services to this
customer’s satisfaction (e.g. sale of a defective product or failed in-house product repair), a mistake made
by the worker, the customer’s previous inability to receive helpful customer service from the company, or
any other plausible idea that you can come up with.
Although the interaction will not be a smooth one, it should be resolved by the end of the skit.
Include a place in the skit for you to switch places with your partner so that you can both play the
worker resolving a conflict. When you’re ready, perform your skit for the class.