View Content #26358

Learning objectives: Learners will be able to

• recognize and produce different greetings
• choose a greeting to match social closeness, power relationship, and degree of imposition

Modes: Interpersonal, Intercultural

Materials needed: props for acting out scenarios

Procedure:

1. As a whole class, create a list of different ways to greet someone in students' and teacher's L1. Aim for 6-10 examples, supplied by students.

2. For each of the greetings on the list, ask students how and when they use them. Consider different social situations, such as the following:

• a friend
• a friend rushing by late for class
• a sale clerk (that they don’t know)
• the school principle
• their teacher
• their little brother, sister, or cousin
• their boss
• someone interviewing them for a job

Next, discuss the dimensions of social distance, power relationship, and degree of imposition (read more about these here). Here is an example of what the board might look like at this point.

3. Repeat the above two steps with target language greetings. Start with student-generated greetings, and then add more as appropriate. 

4. Taboo/charades: Put students into groups of 2-3. Each small group will choose one target language greeting from the board and think of an appropriate scenario for using it. What can they do to get the rest of the class to guess which phrase they've chosen, without actually saying the phrase? One group at a time, students act out their scenario using props (for example, a tie and fancy hat to indicate a powerful person or a baggy hoodie to indicate a young person), roles (for example, one person acts like a teacher and another acts like a student), and internal monologue (for example, someone saying "Oh no, I've got to hurry!" to him/herself as he/she approaches the other person). The rest of the class determines the intended greeting based on these cues to power, closeness, and imposition.