TEACHER’S NOTES

ESL / EFL RESOURCES Dealing with Complaints

Activity Type Introduction

Pairwork speaking In this fast-paced role-play activity, students practice making and
activity dealing with complaints.

Procedure
Language Focus
Start the activity by brainstorming ten situations in which people
Complaining and
make complaints, e.g. in a restaurant, in a hotel, a faulty product,
apologizing
a delayed delivery, etc.

Write the students’ ideas on the board and number them.

Aim
To role-play making and Split the class into pairs and give each pair a set of cards. Tell the
dealing with complaints students to shuffle the cards and place them face down in a pile
using various phrases. on the table.

Explain that the students are going to role-play complaints for the
Preparation situations on the board. The aim is to use the expressions on the
cards as part of their role-play.
Make one copy of the
worksheet for each pair
In each role-play, students take it in turns to be the person
of students and cut as
complaining and the person dealing with the complaint.
indicated.
The students start with the first scenario on the board and spend
Level a short time thinking about what they are going to say.

Intermediate Each student then takes one card from the top of the pile. The
students begin the role-play and as quickly as they can, they use
the expression on the card in a complete sentence.
Time
30 minutes When they have done this, and while continuing the role-play,
they take another card and repeat the process. The aim is to use
as many of the expressions as they can during the role-play.

Students score one point for each correctly used expression.

The students then shuffle the cards, swap roles, and move on to
the second role-play situation.

The student with the most points at the end of the activity wins.

Alternatively, instead of taking the cards one by one, the students

could take five cards per role-play and try to use them in any
order they like.

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 COMPLAINING AND APOLOGIZING

ESL / EFL RESOURCES Dealing with Complaints

I’m sorry to trouble Unfortunately, this was

I'm sorry to hear that…
you, but… unavoidable as…

Is there anything else…? Leave it with me and… Oh dear, I’m…

I’ve got a bit of a

Would it help if…? Not to worry, I'll…
problem, you see…

Let me straighten this

OK, what I’ll do is… Is there any chance…?
out and I will…

Would you mind…? No problem. I’ll… This was because…

Please tell me exactly I suggest you leave it

I’ll look into…
what… with us and we’ll…

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