Bon appetit!

The objective

To discuss in detail aspects of a restaurant such as decor, food, location, type

The language

Adjectives of size, quality, quantity, opinion, decoration and people

Comparative and superlative adjectives

Compound adjectives

Adverbs of all kinds: Intensifiers, frequency, location, manner and negative (hardly, seldom, barely, not)

The set-up

The next time you´re out, pick up a take-away menu from a good (or maybe not so good) restaurant--or download the menu from the website of a restaurant you know pretty well (written in English). If possible, black out or delete the name of the restaurant.

The low-down

Ask students to look at the menu and think about what their impression of the restaurant is so far--positive, negative? Would they go? What would they order? Ask them to read carefully through and make sure they understand everything. When everyone has shared some initial opinions and you´ve worked through any problem vocabulary, tell them that they are going to start their own restaurant together and this is going to be the menu (proposed by the chef). Ask them to work together to decide what they think would be

• the name of the restaurant

• the type of restaurant (family, Italian, ethnic, trendy?)

• the best reasonable location for this type (neighborhood, street, mall?)
• the size (large, small?)
• the type of food (if not obvious already)
• the price (expensive, cheap?)
• the decoration (modern, traditional?)
• the client profile

When they´ve finished, ask them to present their ideas. Ask others to take notes and discuss in their groups which restaurant they would visit and why.

Now what?

Now ask them to recommend a restaurant to their partner. They should first ask some questions based on points from the first exercise like, What kind of restaurant do you like? How much do you want to spend? What neighborhood? The partner recommends a reastaurant and describes it a bit.

Time to teach

What to focus on is going to depend a lot on the level of your learners. Lower-level learners may need some review of adjectives, order of adjectives ( and maybe even comparisons, if they come up. Higher-level learners could use more complex adjectives (such as sizable, reasonably-priced, affluent, laid-back), as well as the use of intensifiers (extremely, fairly, wonderfully).

More talk-time

How often do you go to restaurants?

Where do you go? Why?

How do you choose a new restaurant you´ve never visited before?

Do you like to experiment with new types of food, flavors or dishes? Or do you prefer always the same?

Can you recommend some restaurants?