Individual style | Teaching English | British Council

Age range: 11 - adult
Theme: Individual style
Lexical area: Clothing and describing people

Instructions for language assistants in Italics

Classroom materials

Introduction:
This lesson is about style and clothing and there are several tasks here that would be suitable for elementary level learners. Task 1 is a classic drawing game where the group produces misfit style characters to describe. Task 2 offers some discussion statements for students to agree or disagree with. Task 3 is a reading text about individual style based on comments from people in Britain. Task 4 is a fun task to design a T-shirt and Task 5 asks students to be judges and select celebrities for some style awards. Finally Task 6 is a lively circle game to recycle the language of clothing and style.

1. Picture consequences
Each student needs a piece of paper and a pencil. Make sure students have their paper in portrait (not landscape) and ask students to draw a hat at the top in the middle. When they have finished they should draw two short lines to show where the head begins and then fold over the paper leaving only the two short lines showing. Students then pass the folded paper to their right and the teacher instructs them to draw a face and neck. Students fold, leaving the two lines of the neck peeping out from the fold. Instruct students to draw the body, to the waist. Fold and pass as before. Then they draw to the knees, then fold and pass, then to the feet.

It’s important to tell students not to cheat and peep at the folded part of the body. That will spoil the fun.Students then unfold the paper and reveal the misfit type character they have created between them. Use the pictures to practice describing people and focus here on the clothes they’re wearing. Make sure your students have the vocabulary they need to describe the detail in the clothing like stripes, sleeves, hooded, baggy etc.

Task 1 Picture consequences
Listen to your teacher to play a game.

2. Agree or disagree?
Before doing this activity, give your students some statements on the board and ask them if they agree or disagree. Then ask them how much they agree or disagree with it. Draw a line on the board like this and fill in the space along the line with other expressions to express degrees of agreement. In the middle you can have ‘neither agree, nor disagree’ etc.

Totally disagree -------------------------------------------------- Completely agree

Then put students in pairs or small groups to discuss to what extent they agree with the statements.

Task 2 Agree or disagree?
Work in pairs and discuss whether you agree or disagree with these statements.

What you wear says a lot about your personality.

I spend a lot of time getting dressed in the morning.

I love buying new clothes.

I really don’t care about what I wear.

Comfort is the most important thing when choosing new clothes or shoes.

I hate having the same clothes as my friends.

It’s important to me to look different to my friends.

I love fashion magazines.

It’s important for me to be fashionable.

Second hand clothes can be cool.

3. Individual style – Reading task
This is a reading task from the British Council’s Trend UK department. Before students read it, get them to answer the questions in pairs or as a group. These questions will pre-teach some of the vocabulary they need to understand the text. If you think they will struggle with other words, be sure to pre-teach them too. When they have all read the text, use the ideas to discuss students’ attitudes towards style and clothing.

Find out more about Trend UK at:

http://www.britishcouncil.org/japan-trenduk-contents

Task 3 Individual style – Reading task
Before reading the text answer these questions.

Do you like standing out from the crowd?

Do you have a favourite T-shirt?

Have you ever bought second-hand clothes?

Have you ever made your own clothes?

Individual style
We’re living in a big business, consumer society which means so many of the clothes on the high street look the same, so how do young people keep their individual style?

Stand out from the crowd
Young creative people in the UK have always come up with ways to express their individuality through their clothes: from punks who cut up their clothes and add zips and safety pins, to baby Goths and skaters who buy chains from hardware shops to hang from their trousers. With punk it was a statement, but it can often be because shops aren’t selling the item you want or to save money.

Customised T-shirts
Printing your own T-shirt is the easiest and most common way to customise clothes. Instead of making them from scratch you can buy a cheap T-shirt and add an image of your choice.

‘I did once make a T-shirt using a T-shirt, a computer and one of those iron-on kits. Slogan T-shirts can be a cheap way to be individual. My mate Simon did a very cool T-shirt with a morphed picture of Cher and Che Guevara (Cher Guevara).’ John, 25, Cheshire.

Student style
Aylish, a young Goth from Suffolk, recently made her own clothes to get an individual style: ‘I bought a second hand T-shirt and skirt, added raggedy strips of material in red and black. I also got some lacey material and made long gloves with fingers.’ Aylish, 15, Orford.

‘I used to make clothes when I was a student … I remember once finding trousers I couldn't afford… I used my address book as a ruler and then did a little sketch. I found the same colour fabric and then went back to the shop wearing them to see how close I was. Actually they were better than the ones in the shop as they weren't as baggy and fitted better… I loved it when people didn't believe I had made them myself… Corrine, 31, Dundee

Helen, 26 from Nottingham comments 'I like to make my own clothes because I know that I can adapt funky old patterns and make things from cool fabrics and best of all be sure that they will fit. I really love using second hands clothes and changing them by adding bits, shortening them or even just changing the buttons. There’s always really great stuff in the shops but by making clothes yourself you can be sure you will always have something original.'

Bernie - January 2007

Glossary

Baby Goths – a term sometimes used for the new younger generation of Goths.

4. Design a T-shirt competition
Draw the outline of a T-shirt on the board and ask students a few general questions about T-shirts, such as ‘do you have a favourite T-shirt?’, ‘what’s it like?’, ‘do you have any T-shirts with writing on in English?’ etc. etc. Then ask your students if they think it’s easy or difficult to design a T-shirt. Students could either work in pairs or individually on this task and you could make it into a competition. When students have finished designing their T-shirt hold a class vote to see which one is the most popular. If you want to make a display for the classroom you could make a washing-line with a piece of string and get some clothes’ pegs for students to hang their design up. There are lots of websites where you can design and order personalised T-shirts. If you have access to the internet show your students one of these:

http://www.creodo.com/uk/
http://www.shirtcity.com/

Task 4 Design a T-shirt competition
Design your own T-shirt!

5. Style awards
For this task you will need to get some pictures of celebritites from old magazines or from the internet. It doesn’t matter too much if your students know who they all are. Try and get a few classics like David and Victoria Beckham in bizarre outfits! Stick the pictures up around the room, or on the board with their names on and get students in groups to go around and select a male and a female for each category. Add some new categories too depending on the type of pictures you’ve got. When all the groups have decided, have some feedback so students can compare their choices with other groups.

Task 5 Style awards
You and your group are judges to select celebrities for style awards. Look at the pictures your teacher gives you and decide which celebrity you would choose for these awards.

	Male	Female
The best dressed
The worst dressed
The most originally dressed
The best hairstyle
The worst hairstyle
The most fashionable
The least fashionable

6. Change places
This is an activity to get students moving. Start with students sitting in a closed circle, with the teacher standing in the middle to begin the game. There should always be one less chair than participants. The teacher says, “Change places if …… you’re wearing trainers.” All students who are wearing trainers must stand up, and move to another chair and the teacher should sit on one of the recently vacated seats. The person left without a seat stays in the middle and gives the next command, “Change places if you ……have brown eyes” and so it goes on. Use the game to recycle language that appeared in earlier tasks.

Internet links

The British Council’s fashion pages
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-design-fashion.htm

London Fashion Week

http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/

Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fashion collections and exhibitions
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/index.html

T-shirt design on-line.
http://www.shirtcity.com/

BY JO BUDDEN