Telephoning challenges dice game

Roll a dice twice. The first roll will decide which function below you should try to achieve when you make your phone call. The second roll will decide which complication below you will have to cope with. Discuss anything else which your partner might need to know, e.g. who they should pretend to be, then roleplay that situation with that difficulty from the very beginning of the call to the very end of the call. When you finish, your partner will rank your performance like this:

1. Okay
2. Fairly good
3. Very good
4. Nearly perfect
5. Perfect

You can then roll the dice that many more times. The highest number on the dice from those throws is your score for that round (e.g. five points if you rolled a 2, a 2, a 5 and a 1).

Functions

1. Making an order (e.g. buying supplies, raw materials or components)
2. Booking/ Making a reservation
3. Enquiry/ Asking for information 
4. Request/ Asking them to do something for you
5. Making arrangements, e.g. fixing a meeting
6. Changing something (e.g. changing a meeting, an order or the specifications of something)

Complications

1. You haven’t had any contact with that person before
2. Someone else answers the phone (not the person you actually want to speak to)
3. You need to be very formal
4. You need to be very friendly
5. There are communication problems (e.g. the other person speaking too fast, background noise, or a bad line)
6. You need to finish the call quite quickly

Play the same game but with the things below for each number on the dice.

Functions

1. Checking the progress of something/ Chasing something up
2. Complaint
3. Giving bad news
4. Instructions/ Commands/ Demanding action (e.g. asking for payment)
5. Negotiating
6. Sales calls (e.g. cold calling, announcing new products, and announcing special offers)

Complications

1. You are not sure who you need to speak to
2. The initial reaction is negative
3. The phone call needs to be quite long
4. There are interruptions during the call
5. You initially contact the wrong person
6. The person who you phone can’t talk (for long enough) right now

Play the same game, but with your own most common kinds of phone call, writing them below before you start. As well as or instead of functions like those above, you could write descriptions of people and places you are phoning (“my boss”, “a hotel”, etc).

1. ____________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________
6. ____________________________________________________________________

Use that to play the same game. This time, your partner will decide what the different problems will be for each number on the dice the second time that you roll it, e.g. “1 = it is difficult for you to understand the other person’s accent”. If they can’t think of six options, the other numbers are “No problem”. 

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Related pages

Teaching Telephoning: Interactive Classroom Activities

Really Learn the Most Useful Telephoning Phrases

Telephoning page

78 EFL dice games

On a roll – EFL dice games