Target Audience: A2 (Elementary) Adult Italian ESL Learners
Topic: Café Culture & Transactional Dialogues
Time: 45 Minutes
Students will be able to successfully order a coffee and specify preferences (size, milk, sugar) in a simulated café setting using a structured dialogue.
This is observable through the role-play and recording activities.
Students will be able to use the key phrases "I'd like a [drink]" and "Can I have a [drink] with [add-in], please?" with accurate pronunciation, particularly focusing on the cognates caffè, zucchero, and latte (milk).
Students will be able to recognize and respond to the barista's follow-up question, "With milk or sugar?"
This is practiced through choral repetition, role-play, and assessed in the production recording.
Coffee cups, sugar packets, milk carton, printed coffee menu
Dialogue strips for scaffolding, "Coffee Bingo" cards
Student phones or a recording device (for Voice Memos)
| Stage & Time | Activity & Script Snippets | Annotation & Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Warmer (5 mins) |
Activity: Caffè o tè? Show contrasting images of an Italian espresso and a large American coffee. Ask: "In Italia, come ordini un caffè? È diverso qui?" (How do you order in Italy? Is it different here?). Students mime their answer. | Activates prior knowledge and cultural context. The visual and kinesthetic hook immediately engages learners and personalizes the topic. Comparing cultures makes the new vocabulary meaningful and memorable. |
| Presentation (10 mins) |
Vocab Introduction: Introduce key terms: coffee, espresso, cappuccino, sugar, milk, small, large, please, thank you. Write them on the board side-by-side with their Italian cognates (caffè, zucchero, latte). Grammar & Function: Model the target language with exaggerated gestures: "I'd like a small coffee with milk, please." "Can I have a large cappuccino?" Drill chorally. |
Explicitly teaching cognates builds confidence and accelerates vocabulary acquisition. The emphasis on "latte" vs. latte pre-empts a common error. Modeling the full functional chunk ("I'd like…") is more effective than teaching isolated grammar rules at this level. Gestures aid comprehension. |
| Practice (15 mins) |
Activity: Barista Role-Play Students use dialogue strips and sentence stems on the board ("I'd like a [size] [drink] with [milk/sugar], please."). Teacher plays the barista, prompting with "With milk or sugar?" Students order using props. |
This controlled practice scaffolds learners. The sentence stem provides necessary support, reducing anxiety. The teacher-as-barista allows for immediate, gentle correction and modeling. The props make the practice tactile and realistic, moving beyond pure memorization. |
| Production (10 mins) |
Activity: Record Your Order Students use their phones to record themselves ordering. Challenge: Add a problem or modification (e.g., "No sugar, please—just milk!"). Teacher circulates to provide support. |
This is a freer, creative task that promotes autonomy. Recording allows students to self-assess their pronunciation and fluency. The "challenge" differentiates for faster learners. The tangible product (the recording) gives a sense of accomplishment. |
| Review & Wrap-up (5 mins) |
Activity: Coffee Bingo Teacher calls out orders ("Large cappuccino with sugar!"). Students mark their cards. The winner must state their winning order aloud. Homework: "Order a coffee in English this week and tell us about it next time!" |
A fun, gamified assessment of listening comprehension. The winner repeating the order ensures speaking practice is part of the review. The homework assignment is practical and pushes students to use their skills in an authentic context, reinforcing the lesson's goal. |
For struggling students, provide a printed script during role-play. Allow them to point to pictures on the menu instead of speaking initially. Pair them with a more confident partner.
Encourage confident students to add more to the dialogue (e.g., "How much is it?", "To stay, please."). The "challenge" option in the recording activity also serves this purpose.
Formative assessment is ongoing through teacher observation during the Role-Play (Practice) and analysis of the recordings (Production). The Bingo game serves as a final comprehension check.