Meeting and Introducing People

Topic: Greetings and Introductions

Mode: Interpersonal

Level: Novice

Students will introduce people to others in formal settings, mentioning full names and occupations.

Components of this activity: Task cards

Instructions to the teacher

  1. Start the lesson by teaching your students some expressions for introducing oneself and others. Include example dialogues where students will practice introducing themselves and their classmates to others. 
  2. Change the names in the cards to suit the target language and culture.
  3. Print out and cut up the cards into separate pieces. Ask each student to pick one identity card and one task card. For a large class, put students in groups of eight so that each gets a card. Alternatively, create additional cards of your own to fit your class population.
  4. Each student will assume the identity on their ‘identity card.’ Students will then be required to find the two people on their task cards and introduce them to each other. 
  5. Each name and each job appears repeatedly on the cards. This is meant to force students to practice to ask for both pieces of information as they search for the correct people to introduce.
  6.  Students must crosscheck the name and job to make sure that they are introducing the right people to one another. 
  7. Make sure no student gets the task card with their own name on it.
  8. The students should go around and ask others their names and jobs until they find the two right people to introduce to one another. Once the correct pair is found, the student will introduce the two people to each other using the expressions that were taught at the beginning of the lesson.

The Activity

Task Cards 

Task 1: Look for Lucy Brown the engineer and Introduce her to Peter Smith a sales manager.Task 5: Look for Peter smith a sales manager and introduce him to Lucy Brown an engineer.
Task 2: Look for Lucy Brown a nurse and introduce her to Peter Smith a doctor.Task 6: Look for Peter Smith a doctor and introduce him to Lucy Brown a nurse.
Task 3: Look for Peter Brown a doctor and introduce him to Lucy Harris a nurse. Task 7: Look for Lucy Harris a nurse and introduce her to peter Brown a doctor.
Task 4: Look for Peter Brown a teacher and introduce him to Lucy Harris a teacher. Task 8: Look for Lucy Harris a teacher and introduce her to Peter brown a teacher.

Identity Cards

Your Name is Peter Brown you are a doctor Your name is Lucy Harris you are a nurse
Your name is Peter Brown you are a teacher Your name is Lucy Harris you are a teacher
Your name is Lucy Brown you an engineer Your name is Peter Smith you are a sales manager
Your name is Lucy Brown you are a nurse Your name is Peter Smith you are a doctor.

Activity adapted from teachthis.com