THIDA MEP Newsletter November 2014 MEP Restaurants By: Teacher Jade This semester I've been trying to do a lot of projects with my class. Projects are a way for stu- dents to integrate what they've learned and use it in a meaningful way. In P5 we recently finished a project in which the students had to work together in groups of 3 to plan a vacation for our class. Students were given 1 week of time and an unlimited budget. The only re- striction was that the vacation couldn't be in Thai- land. The reasoning behind this restriction was that students would be forced to learn about other coun- tries. Once the students finished their itineraries, they gave short presentations to the class and showed pictures of the sites they planned to see on their vacation. One group planned for us to go to Japan, South Korea, Dubai, and the Maldives, all in 1 week! After the presentations, the students voted on which group had the best vacation. I think the students really enjoyed this project and it was a good way for them to use their English and learn about other cultures. Now that we've fin- ished that project, we've moved on to a new and big- ger project: the students are creating their own restaurants! Teacher Dave (P6) and I are working togeth- er to coordinate this project. Students from both of our classes will work in groups of 4 to create their own restaurants. Each group was given a cuisine to learn about. Each group will think of a restaurant name and create a menu with 5 meals, 2 appetizers, 2 drinks, and 2 desserts; the students will also need to include descriptions and prices for everything on the menu. Cuisines include countries such as Italy, Ko- rea, Japan, and Greece; 15 cuisines in total were giv- en but Thai food was excluded. Students are work- ing together in class and at home to research their cuisines on the internet. Once the students have finished creating their menus, they'll write, rehearse, and record short 30 second long commercials for their restaurant. Com- mercials should be funny, yet informative. Teacher Dave and I will record and edit the commercials. Once the commercials are finished, we'll have an in- class showing so the students can see each restau- rants' video. Next, we'll have the P5 and P6 classrooms turned into mock restaurants. Students will operate their restaurants by taking orders, describing dishes, and delivering meals to the other students who will be playing customers. This is meant to be a fun ac- tivity that gives students the opportunity to use meaningful language in a pretend restaurant environ- ment. It also allows them to use language they've learned throughout the course of the project. Once the project is completed, we'll have a food day in our classes. Groups will be awarded ex- tra points for bringing real food into class. For exam- ple: The Italian restaurant group should bring a dish found in Italian cuisine, while the group with Japa- nese cuisine should try to bring a Japanese dish. This is of course not mandatory and only for fun. We hope it will give the students an opportunity to try some of the different cuisines we have been dis- cussing. It's also a fun way to finish the project! Teacher Dave and I also plan to cook some Ameri- can food and bring it in for the students to try!