Charity Wristbands | Teaching English | British Council

Theme: Charity wristband trend
Lexical area: Colours and charities

Instructions for language assistants in Italics

Classroom materials

Introduction
This lesson is about the current phenomena of charity wristbands and therefore it may have a short shelf life depending on how long the craze lasts for. Before you deliver this lesson do check that some of your students wear charity wristbands or that they are interested in charities.

Task 1 is a brainstorm activity to elicit and pre-teach some of the necessary vocabulary for the following tasks. Task 2 is a simple matching task where students match the colour of the wristband to the cause. Task 3 is a mingle activity for students to talk to each other and find out which wristbands are popular in the class. Task 4 is reading task for higher levels with a text from Trend UK. Task 5 offers some discussion questions and can be used as a follow on from task four. Finally, Task 6 is a creative task for lower levels and asks students to design a new charity wristband.

1. Wristband brainstorm
Draw a picture of a charity wristband on the board, or better still wear one to the class. Ask students what it is and some simple questions to generate discussion such as:

Are these wristbands popular here in your country?
Which famous people wear them?
How many people in the class are wearing one?
What charities sell wristbands? Etc. etc.

Ask students to draw a wristband in the box and to write as many words connected to the topic inside the wristband as they can. Possible words could be: charity, money, rubber, Livestrong, fashion, David Beckham, racism, cancer etc. etc.

Task 1 Wristband brainstorm
Listen carefully to your teacher and draw in the box.

2. Match the colour to the cause.
This is a simple matching activity which will help you to find out to what extent your students are interested in the topic of charity wristbands. Ask students to work in groups to match the colour of the wristbands to the corresponding charities.

Answers:

Pink – Breast cancer
Blue – against bullying
Black + white – against racism
White – Make poverty history
Yellow – Livestrong (Lance Armstrong’s charity)

Task 2 Match the colour to the cause.
Match the colour of the wristband on the left to the cause it represents on the right.

Colour	Cause
Pink	Livestrong (Lance Armstrong's charity)
Blue	Racism
Black + white	Breast cancer
White	Bullying
Yellow	Make poverty history

Which other colours and causes do you know? Write any more here:

3. Who’s wearing a wristband?
This activity will only work in classes where at least a few of the students are wearing charity wristbands. Have a quick look around beforehand to check! If your students don't wear them you could actually get them to think of a cause and make their own wristbands before the activity.

This is a mingle activity where students will need to stand up and talk to each other. Before you begin check that the students understand the questions they need to ask to get the information. If necessary put the questions up on the board to support weaker students as they do the task. .

What colour wristband are you wearing?
What is the cause?
Where did you get it?
How much did it cost?
Why are you wearing this wristband?

When they have completed the table, ask some students to tell the class what they found out.

Task 3 Who’s wearing a wristband?
Now you are going to talk to some of your classmates to complete the table.

Name	Wristband colour	Cause	Where from	Cost	Reasons

Now tell the rest of the class what you discovered about your classmates.

4. Reading – Charity wristband trend
This is a reading task for higher levels. Ask students to read the text and try to guess the meaning of the phrases in the table from the context. Guessing unknown words and expressions from a text is a valuable skill for any language learner. When they have attempted to complete the table, check their answers offering more examples of the language in different contexts if necessary. The discussion questions in Task 5 would be a good follow on this activity. The article can be found at the British Council TrendUK website in Japan

Task 4 Reading – Charity wristband trend
Read the text and then try to guess the meaning of the phrases in the table from the context of the text. Check your guesses with a dictionary or your teacher.

To take by storm
A fashion statement
To raise/ increase awareness
To raise money for charity
To be spotted

Charity wristband trend

Charity wristbands are taking the UK by storm but are they a fashion statement rather than a declaration of support?

How the trend began?
The rubber wristbands are available in a variety of colours representing different charities or campaigns. The trend started with the popular yellow band which is inscribed with ‘livestrong’ and was set up by American cyclist Lance Armstrong to raise awareness of cancer. Lance Armstrong survived cancer to win the Tour De France a record seven years on the run and his yellow wristband has raised around £50 million for his charity, which helps young people cope with cancer.

Who is wearing what?
One of the most popular wristbands in the UK is the white ‘make poverty history’ band worn by UK celebrities like Bono, lead singer of U2, and Elton John. Premiership footballers Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand wear the black and white ‘stand up speak up’ bands to combat racism. The pink breast cancer campaign bands have seen an increase in sales since Australian pop princess Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with, and underwent surgery for, breast cancer earlier this year. Fellow Australian Nicole Kidman has been spotted wearing one too. If you want to support the beat bullying campaign you need the blue band which is on sale for £2.50 and is worn by England football captain David Beckham and singer Natasha Bedingfield.

Showing support
The average price of the wristbands is £1 and all the money goes to the charity. They are seen as trendier than traditional charity pins and things like poppies which is why so many young people are seen wearing them. The criticism is that they are only wearing them because they are trendy and a fashion statement, which could be true, but is this a bad thing? If it raises money for charity and increases people’s awareness of various health and social issues then surely it’s a good thing.

This text was first published on the British Council TrendUK website in Japan

5. What do you think?
Put students in to small groups to discuss the following questions, then bring the whole group back together to share their thoughts and ideas.

Task 5 What do you think?
Discuss the following questions in small groups:

Are charity wristbands popular in your country? If so, when did they start to appear?
Do you think wristbands are a good way to make money for charities?
Do you think that most people wear them to show their support for a charity or for fashion reasons?
Are there other ways to show your support for a charity or campaign?
Do you think that the fact that lot of famous people wear charity wristbands helps to sell them to young people?

6. Design a new charity wristband.
This is a creative task for all levels. Ask students to work individually or in pairs to design a new charity wristband that they think their classmates would buy. At the end of the task hold a class vote to see which wristband really would be the most popular.

Task 6 Design a new charity wristband.
You have been asked to design a new charity wristband. Work with a partner to design a new wristband that you think your friends would buy. First decide on the charity and then draw your wristband here:

Internet links

Here you can find a BBC article about the awareness bracelets.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4233623.stm

Here you can find wristband information from BBC’s Newsround site
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid

This is the website for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
http://www.livestrong.org/

This is the website for the Make poverty history campaign.
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/

This is the website for a company that produces the bands.
http://www.band-together.com/

Here you can find Information about the Beat Bullying wristbands.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onelife/fun/wristbands.shtml

By Jo Budden

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