How would you reword this question – What do
most people do for lunch?
My answers were: Do your coworkers do other things at lunch? What do they do? OR If your coworkers don’t eat lunch, what do they do?
My answers were rejected by my supervisor.
I don’t wanna give a toss anymore, but I don’t want this to come up again on my next evaluation.
14 comments
It looks to me like the supervisor wants to avoid a difficulty phrased question.
I personally would say, “Besides lunch, what do people do during lunch?”.
If I was trying to please my supervisor I’d say something like, “What do people like to do during lunch?”
Your question is pretty vague though
It’s an odd question guaranteed to confuse beginners.
What do you eat for lunch is probably the limit here.
Maybe it’s a regional difference but the original question and your versions are not the same to me (I’m Australian).
“…do for lunch?” means “what do you eat/where do you go to eat lunch?” to me. Not “what other things do you do at lunch time aside from eating”.
Eg “what did you do for lunch today?” “I brought lunch and ate it at my desk” “I went to McDonald’s” etc. My answer to the original question would be “most people bring lunch from home” or “most people go out for lunch” etc
Keep it simple and be like ” what’s a popular food to eat at lunch ?”
Language is pretty heavily tied to context its really hard to extract a sentence from a context and make it sound natural. “What do people do for lunch (at your work)? ” is only gonna sound natural if this topic is already being discussed. Trying to generalize the question flat out is just gonna sound unnatural because it is.
What does everyone eat for lunch?
I’m also Australian, and ‘do for lunch’ is talking about what you eat, not a different action.
I don’t even understand what you’re asking. Are you asking where do people buy their lunches, what do they get for lunches, or what do they do instead of eating during their lunches
If you are talking about what people eat:
What do you eat for lunch.
If you are talking about what people do during their break:
What do you do during(for) your lunch break.
I’m not quite sure what you are asking though, which perhaps explains why the explanation isn’t going over well.
California native here. If I’m asked “What do you want to do for lunch?” that’s asking what I want to eat or where I want to go to get food.
Some possible questions you can use:
1. What foods do most people eat at lunch time?
2. Where do people buy food during lunch time?
Reading a comment of yours, if you’re trying to get specific answers, maybe a more direct question would be a better approach:
1. What did you eat for lunch?
2. Where did you eat lunch?
I think the original question is fine. Your students are missing the important “for”. You can compare it to asking “What do most people do *during* lunch?” which would then warrant those answers.
Beginners, should probably framed the question for the answer to be contained already.
Where do you go for lunch?
I go to the conbini.
what do you eat for lunch?
I eat onigiri.
When do you eat lunch?
I eat lunch at 1200.
They are beginners. “do” doesn’t translate well, requires understanding of context. Use the verb that goes with the information you are looking for. picking their own verb is an intermediate skill. Also, the ‘most people’ adds a level of speculation, which beginners generally aren’t ready for without a lot of build up.
May I ask, why were you asked to re-word this? Did you use this question, and your manager thought you should re-word it so as not to confuse the students?
Honestly, if anything, you should be teaching them different versions of the same question since they are likely to come across different wording of common phrases. So there is nothing inherently wrong with teaching “What are you doing for lunch.” alongside “Where are you going for lunch.”
And, as others have mentioned, context is important. I feel like many eikaiwa teachers have been trained to teach grammar only, so that students only memorize form and then of course, can’t actually use what they have learned outside of the lesson they were taught it in.
This also seems like a VERY strange way to evaluate someone’s teaching. Keep in mind that most eikaiwa managers themselves have no ESL training, so have no business evaluating others. They are just teaching you bad habits that will be very hard to unlearn if you ever try to get a serious teaching job.
What do most people eat at lunch?
>What do most people (usually) eat/have for lunch (around here)?
The alternatives you listed seem to be asking for different information than the original, at least to my understanding.