16 Scenarios

I first learned about scenarios during a workshop at ACBEU-Salvador, Bahia in mid 70’s. I was very young, and I only remember that the speaker was a Professor from UCLA, California. If this professor ever reads this chapter and remembers the occasion, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.

Classic Scenario

A scenario is a role-play with a twist. Each group of students is given a card with information about their character. They have no idea what the other character will do, say, or react, which comes a little bit closer to real life. In groups, they prepare their lines and try to predict what the other character will say. When they are ready, one member from each group plays the role. They are also told that they can pause the role-playing and ask for help from their group if they don’t know how to respond to a specific situation that comes up or if they don’t understand what the other person said. That means that they have support from their groups any time they need it. After the presentation, the teacher may comment on the dialogue and give feedback on register, expressions they had problems with, etc. Then, the teacher may repeat the dialogue by calling other students to try it.

If it is a large group, the teacher may have several groups working on the same character and then call students from other groups to present their role-play.

Impromptu Scenario

Because I like to engage students in creating their own syllabus and to hand over control of the class to the students, I have adapted the idea of a scenario to allow students to come up with their own situations.

The teacher may have students create a scenario about anything. For example, I might ask my students the following questions and use their answers to create a situation for a scenario.

Where? (at the supermarket)

Who? (Katherine and Sally)

What’s the relationship between them? (old friends)

When did they last see each other? (10 years ago)

What time is it? (it’s morning).

I usually have large groups and I normally divide the class into four groups. In this example there are two characters, Sally and Katherine, so I would assign the same character to two groups. I would say:

Okay, groups A and B: you are Katherine. You are at the supermarket, and you see an old friend. Prepare your side of the dialogue.

Group C and D: you are Sally. You are at the supermarket and an old friend approaches you. Prepare your side of the dialogue.

When the groups start working, the teacher may introduce some new private information to each group. This private information can be the same for the two groups developing the same character’s lines, or it can be different. In the example below, I introduced different private information to each group. This allowed for several different role-plays to be performed.

Group A: It’s your birthday next week. Invite your old friend to your party.

Group B: Sally has a brother whom you dated for some time. You really had a crush on him. Find out what has happened to her brother. Has he gotten married?

Group C: You are really in a hurry, but you don´t want to be rude. How can you get rid of your friend without hurting her feelings?

Group D: You remember that Katherine once borrowed a book from you and never returned it. You would really like to re-read that book. Mention it but try not to be rude.

Once the groups have finished preparing, the teacher invites a volunteer from two groups (Sally and Katherine) to act the situation out.  The teacher then provides feedback, supplies important words or expressions students could have used, comments on the register the situation calls for, and congratulates them on a work well done. After that, the teacher can repeat the role-play inviting students from the other two groups or even the same groups.