Theme: Consumerism and fair trade
Lexical area: Shopping

Instructions for language assistants in Italics

Classroom materials

Introduction
If there is one thing that people from all countries have in common, it is shopping. Like it or hate it, we are all to some extent consumers, so this is a subject that students of all ages an nationalities should be able to identify to.

Task 1 is to get students involved in the topic and asks them to check out the labels on their clothes and school materials to see where they’re from. Task 2 asks students to think about the most important factors when shopping for different items. Task 3 is a reading task which looks at the trend of fair trade products in the UK and Task 4 gives students some moral shopping dilemmas to discuss. Task 5 looks at the idea of time banks and Task 6 looks at how the cost of a typical pair of trainers is divided amongst all the people involved in producing and selling them.

1. Look at your labels
This is a warmer to get students thinking about where their clothes and school materials actually come from. Ask them to have a look at the labels on their things and to fill in the table. Give them a few examples of your own clothes or things before you start. If you have a class of excitable teenagers make clear that it’s not acceptable to start stripping off their clothes! In fact, it’s probably best to keep this activity to small groups that you can trust to be sensible.

Task 1 Look at your labels
Have a look at the labels on your clothes, bags, pencil cases etc. Find out where they were made and fill in the table with the origin of five items.

• Have the items travelled a long way to get to your country?
• Now write a few sentences and then tell the rest of the group.
  For example: "My T-shirt was made in Turkey and my trainers were made in China”.

2. Consumer criteria.
Before you start, complete the fourth column of the chart with an item that is popular with most of your students, or ask them to decide. Then get them to think about the four items and decide which are the most important factors for them.

Task 2 Consumer criteria.
Imagine you’re going to buy some of the following items. What do you consider before you decide which one to buy?

• Price?
• How it looks?
• The quality?
• The brand? Anything else?

• Do you and your classmates agree on the important criteria?

3. Consumer power – Reading task
This is a text written by the British Council’s Trend UK team. It was written by Connie in July 2005 and the source was The Independent (www.independent.co.uk). It looks at how fair trade products are making an impact in Britain.

You will need to copy enough texts for a third of the class, as each student only needs one part.

Firstly give students the title and brainstorm ideas of what you think the article is going to be about and what words may appear. Then divide the class into 3 groups – A, B and C. Give all the students in group A a copy of the text for Student A, group B a copy of the student B text and so on. Give the students time to read their texts and help each other out with unknown vocabulary. When they all have a good understanding of the text, re-group the students by giving all the students in each group a number (1 to however many in the group) Then ask all number 1s to sit together, all number 2s etc. There will be one student A, one student B and one C in each newly formed group. If your class doesn’t divide by 3 put the extras into groups so some will have 4 students.

Ask students to tell their new group members about their part of the text. Round up the activity with some follow up questions such as ‘are fair trade products popular here in your country?’ etc.

Task 3 Consumer power – Reading task
You are going to read part of a text entitled:

"Consumer power - Feel good about your shopping experience by going ethical."

• Before reading the text, guess what it is going to be about. Share your ideas with the whole group and think of any vocabulary that may appear in the text.
• Now read your part carefully and check any new vocabulary. Then tell your group about your paragraph.

4. Consumer quandary cards
Explain to your students that a quandary is like a dilemma, a problem. Put students into groups of three or four. Cut up the cards and give one set to each group. Ask them to read the quandaries and discuss their responses. When they have discussed them ask the groups for their opinions and then ask each group to think of another quandary for the blank card. Ask them to write their quandary and then ask the other groups for their views.

Task 4 Consumer quandary cards

5. The time bank
Time banks are a very pure example of fair trade. If you don’t know much about time banks, check out this site to give you a bit of background information: www.timebanks.co.uk/

Basically a time bank is an organisation that arranges for people to swap their time so that all parties benefit. For example, I could offer English classes and get a ‘credit’ for each hour I teach. I could then exchange the credits I earn to get another service from another ‘time banker’, such as a massage, computer tuition, a home-made cake etc. etc.

This task introduces students to the idea of time banks. There may well be similar schemes where you’re working so ask if anyone’s familiar with the idea. Go through the initial questions as a group. When you get to the last one make sure you give a clear and simple explanation of the concept of time banking. Then, ask the students to think about what they could offer to a time bank. Ask them to complete the first column. Then ask them to speak to each other and see if they could exchange their time so that both students benefit. Give some examples of what students could offer such as helping each other with their maths homework, making bracelets, helping mend computers, football training, making sandwiches etc.

Task 5 The time bank

• Can you imagine a world without money?
• How did people manage in the past without money?
• Do you think money has become too important in our society?
• What is more important to you, time or money?
• What do you know about time banks?

• Now speak to your classmates and see if you could exchange your time.

6. Clean clothes campaign
The language in this activity is for higher levels but it could be easily simplified for lower levels. The information for this activity has come from an organisation called Clean Clothes Campaign. http://www.cleanclothes.org/campaign/shoe.htm The organisation aims to improve the conditions of the billions of workers in the clothing and shoe industry. Check out their website for more information.

Ask students how much a good pair of trainers cost these days? Then ask them to look at the breakdown of the cost of a pair of trainers and to guess how much is spent on each part of the process.

Answers:

• Material – €8.50
• Production costs - €1.50
• Labour cost of the worker (paying the person who makes the shoe) – €0.50!
• Profit subcontractor – €3
• Transport and tax – €5
• Labour cost of the retailer (paying the person who sells the shoe) – €18
• Publicity for the retailer – €2.50
• Rent of the retailer – €12
• Profit for the brand name – €13
• Research – €11
• Publicity for the brand name – €8
• VAT - €17

Follow on by discussing the students’ reactions to this information.

Task 6 Clean clothes campaign
Imagine a pair of trainers costs €100. How much of that money do you think the person who made the shoes gets?

Have a look at the information below and look at the figures. Try and guess how much of the cost of a pair of brand name trainers goes to each part of the process. Then check with your teacher.

• Material –
• Production costs -
• Labour cost of the worker (paying the person who makes the shoe) –
• Profit subcontractor –
• Transport and tax –
• Labour cost of the retailer (paying the person who sells the shoe) –
• Publicity for the retailer –
• Rent of the retailer –
• Profit for the brand name –
• Research –
• Publicity for the brand name –
• VAT -

Now discuss these questions with your group:

• Are you surprised by any of this information?
• Do you think the situation will change in the future? If so, how?

Internet links
Parts of this lesson could combine nicely with the Essential UK entitled Shopping Nation

Here you can find a nice online shopping game.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-games-trolley-dash.htm

There is a nice articel with an interactive exercise here.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/magazine-consumer-society.htm

This is the site for the Ethical Consumer magazine’s online shopper. It has information about products and the companies behind the brands.
http://www.ethiscore.org

This site has some good downloadable materials from Oxfam’s Cool Planet site.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/teachers/

This site has more about fair trade from Oxfam.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk

The Good Shopping Guide. Information about products and the companies behind the brands.
http://www.thegoodshoppingguide.co.uk

This site has information about fair trade in the UK.
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

By Jo Budden