Your adult ESL students know the end of the semester is coming, and so do you. The requests start rolling in: bonus points, extra credit, one more chance (again). This role play pack gives students the language to handle those conversations the right way, before they walk into your office and say exactly the wrong thing. (Or worse, blurt it out during class.)

Talking to an instructor, teacher, or professor about a grade is one of those culturally loaded conversations an adult ESL student will face. In many cultures, the relationship between student and teacher operates on unspoken rules involving deference, indirect requests, and appeals to relationship.

In an American academic setting, those instincts can backfire fast. Students who haven't learned the difference between advocating for themselves and coming across as demanding or entitled may not even realize what went wrong. This pack tackles the problem directly and gives students real language for getting through it appropriately.

WHAT'S INSIDE the 31-page ROLE PLAY PACK:

✅ Teacher pages — suggestions for how to introduce the topic, activate prior knowledge, and sequence the activities

✅ Anticipation pages — statements related to the theme for students to rate based on personal agreement (scale 1–5), designed to spark discussion and surface cultural assumptions before role plays begin

✅ Idioms/expressions handout — common idioms and proverbs related to the theme with brief definitions

✅ Useful expressions handout — a reference sheet for how to broach academic conversations, with brief explanations of why certain phrasings work better than others

✅ Creating a conversation — includes a card strip version for students to physically sequence sentences, a worksheet version, an answer key, and a script version

✅ Scripts — four pairs of role plays, each covering a different scenario. In every pair, the first script models the wrong approach and the second models an effective one:

• Asking for Extra Credit
• Asking for More Points
• Seeking Help
• Group Presentation Grade

✅ Discussion questions — included after each pair of role plays

✅ Scenario cards — six scenarios for students who are ready to develop their own role plays rather than work from a script

THIS IS DESIGNED FOR YOUR ADULT ESL STUDENTS

Every scenario, every script, and every conversation in this pack was written with adult students in mind. These are real academic situations like asking about a grade, requesting an extension, pushing back on a score for group work…and the stakes are real too. A student who approaches this conversation badly may damage a relationship with an instructor or miss an opportunity to improve their grade.

The scripts give students a chance to hear what both approaches sound like before they're standing in a hallway or sending an email that can't be unsent.

This role play activity pack also works well with older secondary students in life skills classes who are building the same practical communication skills. If your students are mature enough to come up against these situations in the real world, they're the right audience for this pack.

This is included in my Adult ESL Role Plays Bundle.