Being tactful is an essential conversational skill and vital if you want to avoid causing offence or conflict. Tactful language can also help to achieve a desired outcome, for example, if you want to make a complaint or persuade someone not to do something. But being tactful presents a significant challenge to English language learners, as it presents the English language at its most indirect. At the beginning of this lesson, students will have the opportunity to discuss their own experiences of failing (i.e. "putting their foot in their mouth") and succeeding at being tactful. This will be followed by a match-up activity that will introduce students to six grammar and vocabulary-based methods for being tactful. Students will then have the opportunity to role-play being tactful in scenarios that require them to make a complaint or avoid causing offense. A homework activity will also be provided, allowing students to practice what they have learned and demonstrate their understanding in writing.

Students will learn how to identify and use six vocabulary and grammar-based rhetorical strategies that are essential to being tactful. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of how and when to use these strategies in conversation.