Complaining

As much as we Brits hate to admit, we complain a lot. Whether it’s about the
weather, customer service or just plain old gossip, it’s something we’re always
doing. In other cultures, this might be seen as rude; in British culture,
complaining is a part of everyday life. Giving your students the tools to complain
and the freedom to do it without consequence can be really fun.

Activities:
Brainstorm – Topics for Complaint

In pairs or small groups, have your students list people or situations that could
be cause for complaints. These could include hotels, traffic, siblings, an
overbearing boss or anything they’d like. Then, they can add specific annoyances to
complain about for each one (like poor customer service, misunderstandings,
unrealistic requests, etc.). Monitor this activity to make sure students remain
respectful!

Discuss & Write – Making and Responding to Complaints

Next, your students can brainstorm ways of tackling the situations they’ve listed.
Have them write sentences or short conversations for how to make and respond to
these complaints.

If you have an advanced group, you could turn this into a formal letter-writing
activity. Each group can write a letter of complaint, then switch and write
responses to each other. Either way, this is an involved activity which requires
lots of feedback and grammar checking from you.