Theme: What’s cool and what’s not
Lexical area: Fashions and branding
Instructions for language assistants in italics
Classroom materials
Introduction
This lesson is based around a text from Trend UK about the Cool Brand leader survey, which is a survey carried out annually in the UK to decide which are the coolest brand names. If you are working with teenagers be careful not to let it turn into a class where students look at one another to see who’s wearing the trendy brands. If you think this could happen with your group select the activities with care and be sensitive to your students. If you teach older students you could take the lesson onto another level and introduce the theme of globalisation. Check out the weblinks below to a video of Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and to Adbusters an anti consumerism organisation.
Task 1 asks students to think of synonyms for the word ‘cool’ in English and in their own language. Task 2 is a class survey to discover what is and what is not cool according to them and Task 3 encourages students to think about the qualities a product should have to appeal to them. Task 4 is based on a reading from Trend UK and Task 5 and Task 6 are more creative for younger learners; a poster project of what is in and out of fashion and an opportunity for students to design their own brand label for a product.
1. Cool words
This is for higher level students. Those students who have spent time in an English speaking country or who watch lots of films should be able to offer some ideas. It’s a chance for you to offer up to date language to your students of how young people in the UK express themselves nowadays. It also gives the students a chance to teach you some of their language.
Suggested answers, cool: funky, hip, trendy, ‘in’, fashionable…. Uncool: unfashionable, ‘out’, frumpy, out of date…. (if you have recently left the UK you probably have a better idea of current word usage than me!)
Task 1 Cool words
How many words do you know in English that have a similar meaning to ‘cool’ and ‘uncool’? Your teacher can help you with this.
How many do you know in your own language? Write them in the space below.
| English |
My language |
|
| Uncool |
||
| Cool |
2. Cool class survey
This is a survey activity which should get the class thinking and talking to each other. First get the students to work alone and read through the questions so that they can add two more. Once they have all the questions you can put them into groups of five to ask and answer their questions, or you could get them all to stand up and mingle around the class asking anyone they like. As a follow up you could put them in groups to pool their information and create a graph, or you could do this with the whole group on the board.
Task 2 Cool class survey
Ask five classmates the questions in this survey to decide what is cool and what is uncool according to your group. Write two questions of your own in the empty spaces.
| Questions |
Student 1 |
Student 2 |
Student 3 |
Student 4 |
Student 5 |
|
Who’s the coolest actor? |
|||||
|
Which is the coolest shop? |
|||||
| Which is the coolest pet? |
|||||
|
Which is the coolest magazine? |
|||||
|
Who’s the coolest sports person? |
|||||
| Who’s the coolest singer / group? |
|||||
|
What’s the coolest TV programme? |
|||||
|
Who’s the coolest politician? |
|||||
- Tell your group about the results.
- How long do you think the results will be valid for?
3. Cool qualities
This activity is to discover what your students think are the most important qualities a product should have to appeal to them. Does ‘cool’ count?
Task 3 Cool qualities
When you need to buy something new what are the most important factors for you? Imagine you are going to buy a new pair of trainers. Put the following qualities into order – number 1 the most important and number 8 the least important.
|
colour quality brand price comfort fashionable original cool |
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
- Do you have the same opinions as your class mates?
- Compare and discuss your answers.
4. What’s cool and what’s not.
If you can, bring photos of some of the famous people mentioned in the article. Ask students if they know who they are and what they do. You could also bring in some adverts of different products and ask students what they think of the brand. Introduce the idea of branding and ask if the brand of a product is important to the students. You could talk about brands of food, clothes, technical equipment etc.
Students work in groups. Support lower levels by pre-teaching the vocabulary you think they won’t understand.
Task 4 What’s cool and what’s not.
Before you read the text discuss these questions in your group:
- How could you define a ‘cool brand’?
- Is it important for new brands and products to be cool?
- Who can decide what is cool and what is uncool?
Now read the text and answer these questions:
- What qualities does Cool Brandleader consider to decide is a brand has the ‘X factor’?
- Which famous people did well in the survey?
- Do you know any of the brands mentioned? Do you think they’re cool in your country too?
- According to Cool Brandleaders what’s the best way for a brand to get known?
- What would the top five coolest brands in your country be?
- Do you agree with Linda’s comment at the end?
| What’s cool and what’s not. The Cool Brandleader survey is done each year to monitor people’s reaction to brands. UK's five coolest brands today are apparently Selfridges followed in order by Dazed and Confused magazine, Agent Provocateur, the Hakkasan restaurant and the art school at Goldsmith's college. Glamour models Jordan and Jodie Marsh and Mr and Mrs Beckham feature at the top of the list of what’s uncool according to the survey of over 3000 ‘urbanites’ aged 18-44. Strangely England captain David Beckham also features fifth on the list of coolest celebrities… Big Brother Jude Law is the fifth coolest celebrity according to the survey and, with Beckham, is accompanied by the only other Brit in the top ten, Nadia from Big Brother. The new breed of reality TV celebrities also features on the uncool list with Jade Goody, also from Big Brother, in ninth place. A new book Cool Brandleaders which names the brands at the cutting-edge coincides with the survey. It contains 63 entrants which were chosen from a list of 1,300 by the Cool Brandleaders Council. Shopping, reading, drinking and listening London topped the coolest venues’ list with the London Eye. Selfridges was top retailer with shops in London, Manchester and Birmingham’s Bullring. To be really cool with the best of British you need to be listening to The Streets, reading Harry Potter, wearing Topshop clothes and drinking Innocent smoothies. X Factor Participants in the survey said to appear cool brands need, ‘style’, ’innovation’ and be ‘original’, ‘authentic’ and ‘unique’. ‘Word of mouth’ is the best way to get known with ‘celebrity endorsement’ the worst. Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the Cool Brandleaders Council said, ‘whilst cool is subjective, we have gained a great snapshot of who, what and where has the X factor right now’. Linda from London doesn’t necessarily agree with Mr Cheliotis and comments, ‘What sort of a moron would buy a book called Cool Brandleaders by the Cool Brandleaders Council!! Seriously uncool I would have thought’. This article comes from the TrendUK website. |
5. What’s in / what’s out?
Explain the concept of ‘in’ and ‘out’ meaning ‘in fashion’ and ‘out of fashion’. Ask the students some questions or draw on the board to get the concept across. For example draw a pair of flared trousers and ask you students, “are these trousers ‘in’ or ‘out’ of fashion. Use pictures from magazines or your own clothes (if you don’t mind being told you’re not as ‘in’ as you thought you were!) to elicit a few things that are obviously in or out of fashion at the time. To make it very clear put two columns on the board. Then pass the task to make a poster of what is in and out of fashion over to the students. If you have it, give them large card and they can put two columns. Depending on the level they could write a text describing each item explaining and why it is popular or not.
Task 5 What’s in / what’s out?
You are going to make a poster about what’s ‘in fashion’ and ‘what’s out of fashion’. Plan your poster here, then put it onto a big sheet of card.
|
What's in |
What's out |
6. Design a new brand
This is an extension activity for younger students. Encourage them to use their imaginations. Put students into groups and when they have finished each group can present their new brand to the class. Have a vote to decide which is the coolest!
Task 6 Design a new brand
Imagine that you work for a design company. They want your help to design a new brand for their product.
- First decide on the product. It could be trainers, rucksacks, clothes, chocolate bar ……
- When you have a product try to think of a name for the new brand. When you have a name, design the logo.
- When all the groups have finished, present your ideas to the group and have a vote to decide which is the coolest brand.
Internet links
This is an article about the Tate and the London Eye
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/
Some great spoof adverts that you could use as an introduction or to
spice up the lesson for more politically aware students. Could be used
to lead on to a discussion about globalisation.
http://www.adbusters.org/spoofads/ -
Here you can find some information about Cool Brandleaders
http://www.superbrands.org/26317
This is an interesting article about how celebrities are becoming brands
http://news.bbc.co.uk
This site has an interactive quiz on brands and their importance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/
Click on play video and listen to Naomi Klein talk about her book No Logo.
http://www.mediaed.org/videos
By Jo Budden
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| uncool-2.pdf | 77.16 KB |
