A selection of English ESL food printables with role play, miming, drama activity or improv game, speaking practice

This worksheet features a reading exercise, a fill in the blanks activity and a writing activity based on the conversation from the restaurant menu. Furthermore, feel free to use this worksheet as you desire since  you can evaluate whether writing or speaking skills. 

Ordering food at a restaurant - Ordering a meal 

The following cards will help your students develop their speaking skills. Cut the cards, put them face down on the desk, students take the card and must talk nonstop for 1 minute on the given topic.

FOOD - Speaking cards

This is an activity to enhance communication using the structures: I'D LIKE...CAN I HAVE...? WOULD YOU LIKE...? and food-related vocabulary.



ORDERING FOOD AT A RESTAURANT

I give the idiom story for homework.  I ask students to BRING FOOD for next class. Most students did. It was really fun! 

The next class we check homework and talk about the idioms and expressions. I have them translate into plain English if there's time. 



Students then work together in discussing and completing the various activities. 

Students really enjoyed the role-play!



This lesson was designed for a 2 hour class for adult intermediates. 

Conversation lesson on food

Learners should go through the menu card first. Then, there are phrases said by a customer or a waiter/waitress, where the learners should put them into the correct colomn. Last, they should write a restaurant-dialouge according to the phrases and the menu. I usually divide the class into small groups to do the exercises and create a creative dialogue and they have to do a role play (heading "at a restaurant"). 

ordering food in a restaurant - menu card + activities

Another phrasal verb exercise but this time connected to cooking and eating. As before, there is a mix-and-match, gap-fill, article, bing game and the answers are included. There is also a debate with personality cards connected to the article. 

Phrasal Verbs about Cooking

This is a restaurant role play for learners to practice ordering food. The dialogue is divided into 3 parts: at the front of the restaurant, ordering food, and getting the bill.  Different main courses and desserts can be brainstormed and substituted to extend the activity.  Also, after enough practice, learnerss could arrange desks in a restaurant setting. 

Restaurant Role Play 

It includes the simplified lesson plan.



Ordering pizza over the phone role-play activity suitable for adults or teenagers.



I would like... and Can I have... practice.

How to order a pizza on the phone

This is something that I modified from one of the activities we did in a summer camp. So, it isn't my idea. No idea who thought of it but we used it in three different camps. Whoever you are, thanks! This activity works pretty well.



1. Cut out the ingredients out. Divide the class into small groups of 3 to 5 people. 



2. Give about 8 to 10 ingredients to each group and tell them they already have salt, pepper water and basic cooking oil.



3. Tell them to invent a recipe and write it out between them. 



4. Go over the vocabulary bank with them first.



5. Once they finish, each group presents their recipe to the rest of the class.



Ready Steady Cook!

A sample of an American restaurant menu to use in restaurant dialogues with vocabulary

Menu - Restaurant

Dialogue-Lemon pie

Everyone wants to eat delicious food and enjoy the taste of life. Apart of enjoying the food, individual forgot to focus on the quality of meal. There are multiple differences between healthy and unhealthy foods through which you can easily decide what to choose for eating.



Healthy Foods. 

It is referred as the food which is beneficial for health in terms of nutrition and it also fits your body. Healthy food may be considered as organic food (pure from chemicals), whole foods and natural food etc.



Unhealthy Foods.

The best way to describe the unhealthy food is the less nutritional food containing high amount of calories, fat and sugar. This type of food is high in protein although body needs protein but in a particular amount.



Healthy Food vs. Unhealthy Food



Examples of Foods: 

Healthy food is rich of energy such as fresh fruits and vegetables, leafy greens, raw nuts, sprout, yogurt and honey etc. While unhealthy food are white bread, pastas, hot-dogs, chicken roast,chips, chocolate etc



Health Effects: 

By consuming healthy foods fatigue, depression, headache, joint pains, lungs problem could be resolved while unhealthy food welcomes the cardio vascular diseases (CVD), obesity, diabetes and also other chronic diseases.

Healthy & Unhealthy Food

Role play, miming, drama activity or improv game

Food

Culture, intercultural communication, cross-cultural communication

Adjectives to describe feelings, emotions

Adjectives to describe personality and character

Adjectives: Gradable / Non-gradable adjectives

Articles: Definite or indefinite article (a, an or the)

BE + infinitive structures (e.g. he was to become famous)

Clauses of contrast (e.g.  although, while)

Clauses of purpose (e.g. in order to, so that, so as to)

Clauses of reason (e.g. because, because of, due to, as, since)

Cleft sentences (e.g. It's Joey we're looking for)

Comparison: Comparative adjectives and structures

Comparison: Superlative adjectives and structures

Conditional 2 (second conditional) - would

Conditionals: Conditional phrases (e.g. unless, provided that, as long as)

Conjunctions (aka connectives, e.g. and, but, or, so, then)

Contractions (shortened forms, e.g. don't, aren't, etc.)

Determiners (words that can come before nouns)

Formal and informal English (politeness or colloquial language)

Future perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Future perfect simple and continuous (progressive) tense

Future phrases (e.g. be about to, bound to, likely to, due to, set to + INF)

Homonyms (two words with the same pronunciation - homophones and homographs)

It as preparatory subject (e.g. it's raining, it's nice of you to)

Linking verbs (aka copulas, e.g. I am a student)

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Nouns: Collective nouns (team, class, family, committee)

Nouns: Proper nouns (names of people, cities, companies)

Oxymorons (phrases with words of contradictory meaning, e.g. living dead)

Participles: Past participle (e.g. HAVING DONE)

Participles: Present participle (e.g. DOING)

Parts of Speech (aka word classes, e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Past perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Phonetics (pronunciation, IPA, phonetic symbols)

Plural nouns: regular plurals with S ending

Prefixes (e.g. A, UN, IM, DIS, MIS, EN, etc. )

Prepositions vs adverbs (e.g. before me, saw him before.)

Prepositions: Double prepositions (e.g. out of)

Prepositions: Participle prepositions (e.g. pending, concerning)

Prepositions: Phrase prepositions (e.g. by means of)

Present perfect continuous (progressive) tense

Present perfect simple or present continuous tense

Present simple tense: S for third person singular verbs

Present simple vs continuous (progressive) tense

Pronouns: EACH OTHER, ONE ANOTHER (reciprocal pronouns)

Pronouns: Possessive pronouns (e.g. my, mine)

Pronouns: Reflexive pronouns (e.g. myself, yourself))

Pronouns: SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, EVERYBODY, NO ONE, NOTHING, etc.

Pronouns: THIS, THAT, THESE, THOSE (demonstratives)

Pronouns: YOU and THEY to talk about people in general

Quantifiers (e.g. some, many, much, any, few, little)

Questions: WH questions (open-ended questions)

Reported speech: reported questions (indirect questions)

There is / there are / there was / there were / there will be, etc.

Verbs: Transitive or intransitive verbs (words that can or cannot stand with objects)

Working with Paragraphs: ordering, titling

Pictionary (picture dictionary) or picture matching

Writing an opinion essay (persuasive essay)

Learners who are Pre-A1 have just begun learning English and will first learn how to:<ul><li>Say the letters in the alphabet and numbers</li><li>Say hello, talk about names and age</li><li>Name the colors and dates, express likes and dislikes</li></ul>

Absolute beginners who have begun to learn the letters and numbers

Learners taking the A1 Elementary exam should be able to:<ul><li>Introduce themselves and ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, things he/she has, people he/she knows.</li><li>Communicate using very basic phrases as long as the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: common adjectives & adverbs of frequency, going to, how much/how many, imperatives, I'd like, 's – possessive, common prepositions of place and time, present simple & continuous, there is/are</li></ul>

A very basic tourist level, which is enough for buying food and a bus ticket

Learners taking the A2 Pre-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand sentences and frequently used expressions (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).</li><li>Complete tasks that are routine and exchange information about familiar matters.</li><li>Describe matters of immediate need in simple terms.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: countable/uncountable nouns, adverbs of frequency, future will/going to, much/many, present perfect, past simple, past continuous, common phrasal verbs, common modals: can/should</li></ul>

A tourist who can do basic conversations about the past, present and future

Learners taking the B1 Intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand points regarding family, work, school or leisure-related topics.</li><li>Deal with most travel situations in areas where the language is spoken.</li><li>Create simple texts on topics of personal interest.</li><li>Describe experiences, events, dreams, and ambitions, as well as opinions or plans in brief.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: question tags, intensifiers: too/enough, future tenses, past tenses, modals, conditionals, wh-questions in the past</li></ul>

Learners who can deal with both familiar and routine situations, in friendly and work contexts

Learners taking the B2 Upper-intermediate exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.</li><li>Interact with fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without difficulty for either party.</li><li>Produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain an opinion on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.</li><li>Main grammar points to know: perfect tenses, mixed conditionals, modals in the present, phrasal verbs, reported speech, wish, relative clauses</li></ul>

The level where you can be a tour guide for your foreign friends and talk about a lot of topics, even abstract ones, with ease and fluency

Learners taking the C1 Advanced exam should be able to: Express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts. Produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, using linking phrases (=words that connect ideas between sentences). Main grammar points to know: inversion, mixed conditionals, modals in the past, all passive forms, phrasal verbs (all patterns), wish/if only for regrets

Learners who can smoothly communicate in every walk of life, read long texts and write well

Learners taking the C2 Proficient exam should be able to:<ul><li>Understand almost everything read or heard with ease.</li><li>Summarize information from a variety of sources into a coherent presentation.</li><li>Express themselves using precise meaning in complex scenarios.</li><li>Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations</li></ul>

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18 Food, Role play, miming, drama activity or improv game, Speaking Practice English ESL worksheets pdf & doc