Inviting on the telephone

  There is a  little exercise I like to do in the classroom sometimes. It goes like this:
  1. I take a toy telephone, hold it next to my mouth, and pretend to have a conversation with an imaginary partner called John.
  2. The students listen to my voice and then tell me what they think John said to me.
  3. I put them in pairs and give them a one-sided telephone script like the one in the next section.  They then try to fill in John's words.
  4. Afterwards, each pair acts out their conversation.
   How about trying this exercise yourself? Please see the next section.

    One-sided telephone conversation

   Bob:       Hello.
   John:     ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Yes, speaking.
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Oh, John, hi. Long time no see. How’ve you been?
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Oh, not bad. You know… working hard as always.
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Tomorrow evening? No. I don’t think so. Did you have something in mind?
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Lord of the Rings? Erm… actually I’ve already seen it.
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Well, to be honest, I didn’t think much of it, myself. It was a bit too long.  
   check. Let’s see… there’s an early
                 performance at 6 o’clock, and there’s a later performance at 8:50.
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Yeah, me too. 6 o’clock would be too much of a rush.
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Let's meet for a drink at, say, 8 o'clock and then go to the cinema.
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       The King’s Head, right.
   John:      ...................................................................................
   Bob:       Yeah. See you tomorrow. Bye.
   John:      ...................................................................................

     Of course, there are many different phrases we can use to fill in these gaps. But,
     anyway, try to make your own dialogue and then click here to see my version.

    Click here if you want to try some of my other one-point lessons.

    © Robert E. Jones, 2004