- Luke
For Teachers: Fashion Project Lesson
As many of you who worked at language schools during the summer with teenagers, you might have done a few project lessons. The type of lessons where students work together to produce some kind of work that can then be presented and then displayed on the wall for all the students to admire. At my school, Monday was project lesson day, and one Monday we were given the topic of fashion – a topic I quite enjoy. I had a mixture of teens from Italy, France, Russia, and Spain. With most of them being girls, I thought interest would be high. And it was, even the guys got really involved too and came up with a good final project. The class was an upper-int/advanced class and the final project was to come up with their own fashion brand and all the things connected to it.
The materials, including the ppt I used can be found at the bottom of this post.
It's also important to mention that this project was done over 2 x 90 minute lessons in an afternoon. You might want to chop / change / skip any of the steps to fit what is best for you.
1. Start off by telling Ss of the last item of clothing you bought, the brand, where, and why you bought it. Put Ss in pairs and ask them to tell their partner the same details.
At this level, students will probably know that get can also mean buy, but it might be a good idea to mention so in feedback you can ask ' What did you you get? ' ' Where did you get it? '
Show Ss the quote “ “Fashion is a way of expressing yourself without having to say anything.” and ask them if they agree with it and to come up with 3 ways they agree or disagree with their partner.
2. After feedback from the quote, show students the following questions and allow them to talk in pair or groups
Questions:
Are people in your country fashionable?
What is 'in' at the moment?
Does your country have any top brands, which?
What do you think about fakes?
Which makes are you wearing now?
You might need to point out before they start talking 'in' means popular now. Fakes being copies of products, and make being used as another word for brand. What make are your shoes? Nike
3. Show your students some pictures of some popular brands and ask if they know any of them, where are they from, do they own any thing made by them, do they have any kind of reputation, for example 'only hipsters wear it' after going through all the brands, make sure Victoria Beckham is last and focus on her for a moment to see what students know anything about her. Then show her picture. Maybe they know her face better than the name. She was in the Spice Girls, she is married to David Beckham. And now she is a fashion designer. Ask if anyone has any of her stuff and what it is like.
Brands in the PPT are: Burberry – England H&M – Sweden – Lacoste – France – Ralph Lauren – USA – Napapriji – Italy – Gucci – Italy – Vans – USA
4. Explain to students they are going to watch an interview with Victoria talking about fashion. Task1. Is a simple enough true or false listening and then task2 is a little harder. It's a gap-fill exercise where answers may be more than one word. Before doing the gap-fill exercise, you can go over some of the words you think your students might need to be able to complete the listening. You could also work or these after the listening.
Post questions could be: What do you think about her opinion of the queen? Do you think it matters what city you design and work in?
5. Show the Adidas logo and ask what people think of this brand, what they like about it, the classic teenage question, which to you prefer Nike or Adidas, and ask for the slogans for each. Nike ' just do it' Adidas 'impossible is nothing'
You might want to go over several over slogans, fashion or not as your students will need one of their own later.
6. Divide the class into A and B students. Ask Ss A to face the board and Ss B to not. Tell them Ss A will watch a story, and Ss B will read a story. After they watch and read, ask Ss to turn around and then compare what they've just read and watched. Both Ss have the same amount of time, so you might what to choose the stronger readers to do the reading part.
I downloaded this video and put some music to it. You can do the same or just mute the sound as students watch.
Note: It seems most people know this story,so that's why I don't ask what they know about the company when I show them the logo. Try to encourage Ss to give as much detail as possible. This task will help them for the final project.
7. Now it's time for the project. Put students in groups and give them access to computers if you can, so they can prepare their presentation on a new brand. If not, A3 paper would be good, this is how I did it. It can then be displayed on the classroom wall. The details needed for the the brand are
Brand Name / Logo / From (country) / A brief backstory (like the adidas one) / Slogan / What type of clothing / Famous people connected to the brand / Fun facts
Be sure to monitor and offer some advice and help, especially with any writing. Coloured pens and pencils are a nice touch to those using A3 paper.
8. Ss share their new brand. You can get groups to share with groups or have students present to the whole class.
Cheers
The files: PPT / Lesson plan + material
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