‘Waiter, I have a fly in my soup!’

Lekce angličtiny ve virtuálním prostředí Languagelab

Speaking lesson – Complaints

Students: maria lyric, tracy, nikolai ragui, tomo jules, anatoly, huan zuta, guenmola (Europe, Asia, South America)

Teacher: kori blaisdale (UK)

‘Waiter, I have a fly in my soup!’

This lesson was dedicated to complaints in a café or a small restaurant. What can you complain about in a restaurant? Well there are many things. The place can be dirty and plates or cutlery could be badly washed….You can call the place UNSANITARY

Usually this is not the case, but some things aren't the way they supposed to be. They aren't up to scratch – not good enough

Sometimes everything is perfect except the fact that you don’t get served in an acceptable length of time. That usually means that the staff is INCOMPETENT and cannot do their job properly.

There could be many other problems but these are the most common. After a discussion about problems in a restaurant or a café we were given notecards with a role play. We were supposed to play up a situation that could happen in a café.

 I was a waitress who had a very stressful day. I was the only one in the café, everyone else was ill. The chef got crazy and locked himself in a fridge. On top this I wasn’t allowed to give customers any refunds. Anatoly was a businessman who was waiting for a very long time to get served and a child spilt an ice cream on his trousers. Tomo was the parent of the naughty child. I was supposed to deal with all the complaints and calm the customers down. So I offered them free coffee and chocolates instead. Fortunately for me they accepted and didn’t complain to my manager……

It was a great practice of a functional language used for complaints.

Here are some phrases we used.

I am terribly sorry sir.

Please accept my apologies.

I do apologise for any inconvenience caused.

I do not have any more of the chocolate muffins I’m afraid…..

Please accept free coffee and complimentary chocolates…..