Take the Green Line to 22nd St. Station:
A Role-play
for Giving Directions by Subway or Bus
Purpose and Audience
The purpose of these materials is to get the students to practice giving directions to a place
by subway or bus. The materials are intended for false beginners to lower intermediate students.
The language points covered in this lesson are:
Take the Green Line.
Transfer to the Blue line.
Get off at Broadway Station.
Go out exit 4.
As well, students will learn to talk about sales.
Resources to Download
The teacher will need to print off and photocopy five sheets:
Warm-up
If there is a subway in the city where you are teaching, tell the students that you are going somewhere (famous), but you don't know how to get there by subway. Hopefully, the students will give you directions. Write down what they say exactly. Then go over the directions as they gave them and point out how a native speaker might have given the directions using the target language above. Now that they have model language to go by, ask for directions to a few different places. If there is no subway in your city, you can try the same activity with bus routes.
Class Set-up and Activity
The class is divided into two groups: callers and receivers. The callers and receivers are old friends. The caller is coming into town to do some shopping. The caller will invite the receiver to go shopping and do something together. The receiver will recommend a department store and give the caller directions to get there. In particular, when the caller says that he or she doesn't know where the department store is, the receiver will ask the caller where the caller is now. The receiver will then use the subway map to guide the caller from the caller's current location to the department store.
Callers will receive an activity sheet and a role card. Receivers will receive an activity sheet, a sales flyer, and a subway map. Note: Callers do not get a subway map. Receivers sit facing the wall and callers sit behind the receivers as in the picture to the right. When a caller wants to make a call, they tap the receiver on the shoulder and say, "Bring! Bring