Service Encounter: Checking in to a Hotel

The following activity is designed for intermediate-advanced ESL learners in a listening & speaking class. The goal of the lesson is to teach students how to check in to a hotel and how to complain when there are unsatisfactory services. The activity has four parts:

1) Pre-listening questions: These questions serve as a warm-up discussion basis for the class and help to activate the preexisting schemata.

2) Comprehension questions: These questions serve as a language and culture guide to students while they are practicing listening skills via watching the movie clips found in Youtube. Students need to listen for not only main ideas and details but also cultural notes.

3) Post-listening questions: In the stage right before the production task, it is important for students to understand what they should do and how they can do it while checking in to a hotel. These questions help the class to summarize what they have learned through watching the movie clips.

4) Recorded role-plays: This is the final stage, which contains a production task. Students are asked to work in pairs and record a role-play in Audioboo as a class assignment.

Checking in to a Hotel: Pre-listening Questions

1. Have you ever checked in to a hotel before? What is the procedure you need to go through in checking in?

2. What types of rooms do the hotel usually have available? Which types are more expensive? Which type of room do you usually reserve?

3. What services do the hotel usually provide? What do you need to prepare if you were to stay in a hotel?

4. What should you say when you are checking in to a hotel you have reserved?

Checking in to a Hotel: Comprehension Questions

Instruction: Watch the first four movie clips about hotel check-in in the video (0:00 - 8:06). You will watch each clip three times to answer the following list of questions.

1. The Hangover (2009)

1) Which one of the guys made the reservation? What is his name? What does he do for a living?

2) What type of room did the guys have? On which floor?

3) Why did one guy who wanted the villa say that he was not willing to share beds with the others?

4) Why didn’t the doctor want to use his credit card?

5) What did the hotel ask for a credit card during check-in?

6) What is the name of the hotel?

2. The Graduate (1967)

1) Why did the receptionist ask the guy if there’s anything wrong with him?

2) Why didn’t the guy want the porter to bring in his luggage?

3) Did the guy follow the porter to his room?

3. Friends

1) Who made the reservation? Where does he come from?

2) Why did the guy who made the reservation feel frustrated?

3) What type of room did they end up having? What’s the rate for it?

4) What did the other guy suggest they do instead of paying for the hotel?

5) What did the guy mean when he said “they are totally ripping us off”?

6) What did the other guy suggest to make their money back from the hotel?

7) What’s the room number of the two guys?

8) What were the complimentary toiletries that the guy asked on the phone? Why did people laugh?

9) Do you agree with what the guy said on the differences between “stealing” and “taking what the hotel owes you”?

4. Seinfield

1. What kind of car did the guy reserve?

2. According to the guy, what’s the difference between “taking the reservation” and “holding the reservation”? Which one is more important?

Checking in to a Hotel: Post-listening Questions

1. Based on the movie clips, what should you say first to check in to a hotel room you have reserved?  

2. If the receptionist has not been able to hold your reservation, what should you say?

Recorded Role-Play on Audioboo

Instruction: Together with one classmate, design a short role-play about checking in to a hotel. One of you should play the role of the receptionist, and the other should be in the role of the customer. Include a scene of unsatisfied service (like what you have seen in the clips of Friends and Seinfield) and demonstrate how you resolve the problem. Your role play will be graded using the following rubric:

Greetings	The receptionist initiates the conversation with an appropriate greeting.		1	0
Information	The customer provides necessary information in correct sentence structures.		1	0
Problem	The receptionist describes a problem with the reservation in an appropriate manner.	2	1	0
Complaint	The customer voices a complaint in an appropriate manner.	2	1	0
Solution	Both parties work out a solution in appropriate languages.	2	1	0
Pronunciation	Comprehensible pronunciation of single words/phrases with appropriate volume, intonation, and pauses.	2	1	0
Total		/10

Answer key to comprehension questions:

1. The Hangover (2009)

1) Doctor Price made the reservation. He is a dentist.
2) a two-bedroom suit on the 12^th floor

3) In the U.S., it is considered strange for adult guys who are straight to share beds with each other.

4) His wife, Melissa checks his bank statement, and he doesn’t want her to find out about the hotel reservation.

5) The hotel needs a credit card to be on hold in order to keep a file of the guests.

6) Caesar’s Palace

2. The Graduates (1967)

1) He looked sad and lonely, and he asked for a single room.

2) He didn’t want to have all the trouble to bring the luggage in, and he just needed a toothbrush.

3) No.

3. Friends

1) Chandler Bing, from New York City.

2) They tried to cancel the reservation the day before but was told it’s non-refundable, so they drove six hours to get to the hotel, but the hotel did not have their reservation.

3) Deluxe Suit, $600 per night

4) He wanted them to drive back to New York and stop at every maple candy store.

5) The only room left for them was too expensive, and he felt being cheated.

6) He suggested that they took lots of the hotel’s amenities.

7) Suite 206

8) Toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, mouthwash, deodorant, dental floss, bandage, shaving cream, after shave, and tampons. It’s funny because he is a guy and he doesn’t need tampons.

9) No, he thought as long as it is complementary, he can take whatever he wants in large amount. But in reality, this is taking advantage of the hotel’s complementary policy, which should mean take only if you need it.

4. Seinfield

1) Midsize

2) The hotel only knows how to take the reservation, which means they accept whichever request the customer made. They don’t know how to hold the reservation, which means to reserve only the type of service the customer requested. Holding the reservation is more important.