Shop till you drop_an EFL lesson on shopping

Proposal: A class on the issue of Shopping which encourages students' reflection upon their own shopping habits and motivations.

Target audience: Ranging from an Upper Intermediate to an Advanced group of adults, or mixed age groups.

Resources: youtube videos, internet articles and QR Codes with communicative follow up exercises.

Rationale
The video and articles below can be used in contexts where the coursebook or school syllabus suggests the scope of shopping
The main aim is to expand students’ perceptions of shopping within their own social context and encourage their reflections on the feelings and media mass manipulation which very often lead to consumerism.
The resources presented are starting points in order to expand students’ collocations on the theme and give them opportunities to share their own views and experiences, as well as contrast their realities with the ones illustrated on both youtube videos.
Both scenes illustrate binge-shopping and provide students with genuine listening opportunities and new shopping-related vocabulary.

The QR code activities bring in the element of tech usage to the classroom and enable students to keep a record of the activities in their own devices as opposed to distributing hand outs. In order to have a larger number of students scanning the code, the option “plain text” is used. Thus an internet connection is not required.

Videos & QR codes 


 + QR Code_Confessions of a shopaholic

+ QR Code_Desperate Housewives s08


Link: QR codes videos

…when students have listened to a recording for comprehension purposes, we can prompt them listen to it again in order to notice a variety of language and spoken features. Sometimes we can offer them script dictations (where some words in a transcript are blanked out) to provoke their awareness of certain language items. 
Harmer, J. (2007) The Practice of English Language Teaching
      Pearson Longman, 308

Articles

Choose from the suggested articles the one you see as most suitable to your class:


Give students some time and a task such as:

* highlight sentences they agree or disagree with.
* list main characteristics of a shopaholic
 *motivations for binge-shopping

It is very important that they have a chance to compare their findings and justify the reason why such parts called their attention.

Read one of both articles and list the characteristics you could see in the last video
 (or both of them).
I would wrap up the lesson by encouraging students to share the collocations learned and come up with questions within the topic of shopping.

Although the main focus is reflection and learning shopping collocations, the element of fun and entertainment is present by using current comedy scenes. 


Raquel Gonzaga
@Rach_Gonzaga

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