This week I was again with the Grade 4 and 5s, we took a look at restaurants. We focused on what would happen when you entered a restaurant, such as greeting the waiter and looking at the menu. I was able to share some pictures of dishes from around the world with the students so that they could learn some new vocabulary and ideas of other world foods. We then spent time making up our own menu as a class, thinking of what foods that we would have on it and how much money each item would cost. Some restaurants turned out to be very cheap while others were excruciatingly expensive, such as the restaurant for one class where some noodles were 1000 RMB. It was a lot of fun and it got the students thinking about the types of foods that they liked and for many it showed them just how many words they knew for various foods which was an encouragement for them as well! We also spent time doing a role play practising the new words that we had learned and putting it into a restaurant setting before finishing up with a game of fill in the blanks - made more interesting with a noughts and crosses competition alongside it!

This class made me realise also how sometimes when we go to various countries it can be so easy just to eat the foods that are 'safe' the ones that we know what they are and have tried before. When I first came to China I was under the elusion that the food here would taste like the 'Chinese Restaurants' from back home, but the reality is very different! I am constantly finding new foods and sometimes just eating things that I have no idea what it is. But it is my hope that with knowledge of food from other countries if ever these students do travel abroad they are able to order food knowing what to expect and to have the confidence to do so.