These Petshop Role-Play Kits are a series of printables that can be cut and glued to form realistic modular role-play props that make it super easy for a teacher to organize authentic petshop shopping scenarios in a classroom environment.
With these materials, students can participate meaningfully in role-play interactions after memorizing as few as 20-30 vocabulary words. Role-play activities are a type of communication practice exercise used regularly under the communicative language teaching (CLT) methodology as 1 of 6 common classroom activity types.
Full Prerequisites: Students can participate fully in this Role-Play Activity with all of the activity’s available materials after memorizing/learning:
Materials Available:
Role-play Activities are a type of communication practice exercise used regularly under the communicative language teaching (CLT) methodology as one of six common classroom activity types. These activities allow teachers and students to engage in a form of (primarily) verbal communication that approximates authentic real-to-life communication.
One our core goals while creating the resources listed on this page was to make authentic role-play speaking activities accessible to even beginners and near-beginners. Many of the available activities are designed to not be open-ended in format, allowing learners to succeed at completing the role-play exercises with a very minimal level of pre-learning required.
This approach aids in building confidence and providing enough repetitions of speaking practice for the learners to make quick progress in their ability to speak English.
1. Gaining basic mastery in using the following sentence patterns and sentences to successfully complete a customer service interaction:
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I want to buy a _________________.“
“A _________________ costs $__.“
“Please give me $__.“
“Anything else?”
2. Being able to collect information to make a pet recommendation when a customer doesn’t know which pet they want to buy:
“Yes, I want to buy a pet, but I don’t know which animal I want.”
“Do you want a quiet pet or a noisy pet?”
“Do you want a water pet or a land pet?”
“Do you want a smaller pet or a bigger pet?”
“Maybe you would like a _________________.“
“Yes, I would like a _________________.” / “No, I don’t want a _________________.“
3. Being able to make recommendations about things that specific pets need or like.
“_________________ need (a) _________________. Do you have a _________________?“
i.e. “Fish need a tank. Do you have a tank?”
i.e. “Dogs need food. Do you have dog food?”
“_________________ like (a) _________________. Do you have a _________________?“
i.e. “Cats like beds. Do you have a cat bed?”
i.e. “Fish like castles. Do you have a castle?”
“Yes, I do.” / “No, I don’t. Can I buy one?”
4. Gaining basic mastery in using basic polite language during a food service transaction:
“Here you are.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
On-Going Self-Assessment:
During each round of role-play, the participants will either reach a successful customer service conclusion — or it won’t. Learners will generally always self-diagnose the miscommunication and figure out how to correct it. Due to the personal motivation to get it right, typically, students tend to be proactive in asking a peer or teacher for help with this if they get stuck.
Graduation:
Learners will have achieved the Learning Goals listed above when they can effectively use the target Sentences / Sentence Patterns and Core Vocabulary Words confidently and without hesitation to play either side of a petshop customer service interaction during a practice session with an instructor, or in a practice session with another student while an instructor observes.
1. Introduce the Core Vocabulary Words and encourage the students to learn them.
2. Demonstrate a basic version of the Petshop Shopping Scenario, including just a small number of the Core Vocabulary Words, such as just “dog” and “mouse.”
3. Allow the students to practice this initial basic version of the Role-Play Scenario.
4. If the students are comfortable with the basic version, demonstrate a more complex version of the Role-Play Scenario, where addition items are recommended and purchased, such as a tank for a fish or turtle.”
5. Allow the students to practice the Role-Play Scenario in partner-pairs a few times.
6. If the students are comfortable with this additionally complex version, demonstrate a full-fledged version of the Role-Play Scenario, with the customer not knowing which pet they need and needing a recommendation.
7. Using more and more resources from the 3 provided Role-Play Kits, the instructor can continue to repeat this cycle of demonstrate and practice until students are ultimately able to participate productively in a relatively complex Petshop Shopping Role-Play Scenarios.
8. During practice, the instructor’s role is to monitor the students’ practice to ensure correct use of the activity’s Sentence Patterns.
9. When students fully achieve the activity’s Learning Goals, the instructor can then graduate the student(s) to a new learning opportunity/activity that further builds on the newly achieved learning.
Notes:
For classes with only 1 student, the instructor will also need to be the student’s practice partner.
1: Materials Set A – C
These sets includes various pets, accessories, and supplies.
Pets and Pet Toys Come in Different Colors
Materials Such as Dog and Cat Beds are Available
A Variety of Animal Food Bags are Available
The Sentences & Sentence Patterns Used in this activity include everything needed to successfully complete this Role-Play Scenario.
However, there is plenty of room for additions and alterations to the suggested language below, as the language provides is at the most basic level of communication possible, suitable specifically to beginners. Instructors are encouraged to adapt the target language to a level suitable to their students’ current abilities and learning needs.
Sentences & Sentence Patterns |
Can I help you? |
Yes, I want to buy a _________________. |
A _________________ costs $__. |
Please give me $__. Yes |
Anything else? |
Yes, I want to buy a pet, but I don’t know which animal I want. |
Do you want a quiet pet or a noisy pet? |
Do you want a water pet or a land pet? |
Do you want a smaller pet or a bigger pet? |
Maybe you would like a _________________. |
Yes, I would like a _________________.” |
“No, I don’t want a _________________. |
_________________ need/like (a) _________________. Do you have a _________________? |
Yes, I do. |
No, I don’t. Can I buy one? |
Here you are. |
Thank you. |
You’re welcome. |
The Core Vocabulary Words listed below are all words that students should learn BEFORE attempting the Role-Play Activity described on this page.
This system is designed to start with just using the Set A materials for an initial very basic Role-Play Scenario, and then gradually add components from Set B and finally Set C to add an increasing level of complexity. The Set B materials should always be used in combination with the Set A materials, and the Set C materials should be used as an additional add-on to Sets A & B.
Therefore, learners should begin by learning the Core Vocabulary Words for Set A and gradually learn the Set B and Set C words as needed.
Core Vocabulary Words To Pre-Learn | |
Materials Set A | animal, bird, cat, dog, fish, monkey, mouse, pet, rabbit |
Materials Set B | bag, ball, banana, bed, black, blue, cage, dollar(s), food, land, noisy, octopus, quiet, red, white, tank, turtle, water |
Materials Set C | castle, green, yellow |
The following words will be used to the play this game (with every available set of cards). However, these words don’t need to be pre-taught. These words can and should be learned WHILE playing the game. The instructor’s demonstration of how to play the game will provide an opportunity to show how all of these words are used as part of useful communication sentences.
Vocabulary Best Learned in Context | |
Used With All Material Sets | a/an, anything, are, bigger, but, buy, can, costs, do, don’t, else, give,me, have, help, here, I, know, like, maybe, need, no, one, or, please, smaller, thank you, to, want, which, would, yes, you, you’re welcome |
Most of the words included on this list are hard (or virtually impossible) to depict visually on a flashcard. Demonstrating them while introducing this Role-Play Activity and then having learners use them while participating in the activity is an optimal strategy for helping learners understand the words’ meaning (based on context/function).
1. Singular Countable/ Uncountable Article Use
This activity is an excellent opportunity for students to learn about the difference between countable and uncountable nouns, and how to use measure words to count uncountable nouns, with the word food.
“I want 3 dog foods.”
“I want 3 bags of dog food.”
“I want red ball.”
“I want a red ball.”
2. Plural Countable Noun Pluralization
This activity is well suited to giving students an opportunity to practice differentiating between singular and plural nouns, and using correct pluralization (as well as remembering to not place ‘a/an’ before plural nouns).
“I want a 2 green balls.”
“I want 2 green balls.”
