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GETTING A LOAN
Role-play
These are the roles to be photocopied and given to the groups of learners:
Role №1
Your bank recently launched a big advertising campaign announcing that it was the friend of small businesses, with the result that everyone with half an idea is coming to you and asking for money! Your superiors expect you to pick out good local investment opportunities. On the other hand, you have previously lent money to young people who lost it all within six months. You want facts and figures - about costs, sales projections, profit margins, repayment periods, existing competitors, the possibility of new competitors entering the market, and the long-term prospects for the market. You are slightly worried about the meetings, because you know absolutely nothing about dance music, never order take-away pizzas, and know very little about computers. For this reason, you can invite your two assistants to the meeting if you want to.
Role №2
You are fans of this kind of music; you think you know what the market wants; you think the market is big enough to make a small shop profitable; you think the existing competition is weak - inadequate selection of music, wrong ambience, etc. But remember that you will probably be talking to someone who knows nothing at all about the kind of music you are interested in. He or she wants numbers. You have to convince him or her that your business will be successful - that it will have, and keep, enough customers to make a profit. You have to pay three months' rent in advance for the small shop. You have to buy display racks and lots of CD players and headphones. Your suppliers (record companies, importers, distributors) expect to be paid within 60 days.
Role №3
Members of the group have been working in the business - answering the telephone, making pizzas and delivering them - for over two years. You know that the business is profitable. The owner wants to leave the country quickly and is keen to sell to you. You have enough money to pay the rent and the normal bills, but the equipment will cost $50,000. Not only do you have experience in the take-away pizza business, but as business students you know all about accounting, promotions, etc.
Role №4
You are what other people call 'computer nerds'. You know everything about computers. You haw spent several hours a day in front of a computer screen since you were nine years old. In fact you don't do anything else. You have been advising small local businesses for two years and earning good money, but you would like to buy better hardware for yourselves. $50,000 would be perfect.
Notes: Three is probably the right size for a group; it the class is large, more than one group can prepare one or more of the roles, although probably only one group will be chosen to enact each role. As usual, the groups and roles can be chosen either by you or the learners. It will probably be necessary for one person to dominate each group in the actual interviews: again, who this is can be the teacher's or the groups’ choice. Fifteen minutes is probably long enough to prepare the roles, during which rime you should male sure that the learners are following the instructions. Then the group of bankers can choose in which order to speak to the potential borrowers, while the rest of the class listens. If there is time, you could briefly talk about polite ways to begin and end interviews such a this. The bankers can choose to lend to none, one, two or all three of the groups. At the end, the class can be invited to say whether they agree with the bankers' choice.
A possible writing activity would be for the learners (singly, or in groups) to write an anticipated list of expenses and revenues for their business, over a two-year period, or a list of reasons why the loan will be granted by the bank, and under what conditions, or why it will be refused.
Источник: Ian MacKenzie "English for Business Studies: a course for Business Studies and Economics students"
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