Author: Khadim Mbacke Badiane (Senegal) | Published on 23 January 2026
Read what Khadim says about this activity
This activity helps learners develop both language skills and real-life skills about sending and receiving money. It also helps students become more confident to speak English in real situations by learning vocabulary related to money transfer.
Stage 1: Warm Up (Pre-teach)
Introduce the topic by asking:
What are the services we use to send money?
Have you ever sent money?
Does anyone in your family use these services?
Where can we go to send money?
Write key vocabulary on the board and elicit meanings: send money, receive, fee, agent, ID card, amount, transaction, customer, balance, receipt, successful, sender, failed.
Stage 2: Model dialogue
Invite a strong student to stand up and play the role of the sender as you model a conversation about sending money.
Agent: Hello. How can I help you?
Customer (Sender): Hello. I want to send money, please.
Agent: May I see your ID card?
Sender: Yes, here it is.
Agent: What amount do you want to send?
Sender: 200 dollars.
Agent: The fee is two dollars. Let me check your balance…The transaction is successful. Here is your receipt.
Sender: Thank you. Will the receiver get the money today?
Agent: Yes, the receiver will receive it today.
Ask the class whether the transaction was successful.
Invite two strong students up to the front. Ask them to secretly agree to change something in the dialogue (the amount of money is an easy suggestion if they don’t think of anything). Then ask them to perform the changed dialogue. Elicit from the class what was different.
Stage 3: Production (Role Plays with Cards)
Copy out this role information onto the board.
Ask the students to work in pairs and play out the scene. They are not reading the dialogue at this stage but they should remember some language chunks from the performances.
Student A
You want to send some money
- You want to send money to your sister.
- Amount: 100 dollars
- Give your ID card.
- Ask if the transaction is successful.
- Ask for your receipt.
Student B
You work as a money transfer agent.
- Greet the customer.
- Ask for the ID card.
- Ask the amount to send.
- The fee is always 1% of the amount.
- Check the balance.
- Say the transaction has been successful
- Give the receipt.
Monitor as the students perform the role play. Note down some good sentences they produce and share them with the class. You can also note downsentences where the meaning is clear but the language is not accurate and ask the class to help you correct them.
Change some information in the role play and ask the students to repeat the dialogue with the roles reversed. Repeat this several times.
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Notes
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