eslHQ - Help!! Please help!!

a) Get various magazine pictures of different types of clothes and set up a shop role play - for instance :

Customer : Excuse me, Can I try this jumper (these trousers etc) on please.
Shop Assistant : Yes certainly. What size are you?
Customer : Size 14.
SA : This is (These are) a size 14. the changing rooms are over there.
C : OK, thanks.

After you've modelled and repetition drilled the dialogue, the Ss work in pairs. Each pair has a pile of flashcards turned face down. They take it in turns to be the customer, who turns over the next card in the pile and asks to try that item of clothing on. The other student is the shop assistant.

b) In pairs students have 2 photos of the same people but they're wearing slightly different clothes in each pic. (If you have a digital camera you can take the photos using your family or friends). Each student has 1 photo and has to find out how it's different from their partner's photo. So the conversation goes something like :
A : Is there a little girl in your photo?
B : Yes, there is.
A : Is she wearing a pink jumper?
B : Yes, she is. And a black skirt.
A : No, that's different. In my photo she's wearing grey trousers.

c) Show students 10 pics taken from magazines of people doing different things. The students look at each photo for 10 seconds and then it's put away. In pairs they then try to remember what the people are doing and what they are wearing : In one picture there's a woman. She's working at the computer and she's wearing a grey suit and a white blouse. When they've made a list of everything they can remember, they tell you about the pictures one by one (T-class) and you then show them the pictures to let them see if they were correct.

The two games in (b) and (c) can be adapted to practise lots of different things. They (and other games like them) are described more fully in this article : Five Picture Games