Beginner Clothing Resources (With Art)

Hello!

I was going through some of my hard-copy resources, trying to see what I still have to digitize, and I came across some pictures that might be useful.

These were some clothing cards I drew up quickly before a class to use for a variety of activities.  Feel free to use them and modify them as you would like

There is a set of all the pieces of clothing on one page for easy printing:

 

And the better download version is here.  I swear the background isn't gray like that....

If you would like each of the clothing in individual cards that you can either print out on large pieces of paper, or mess with yourself, you can download a zip file of all of them here.

Some activities to do with these cards:

Clothes Matching (4 of a kind variety):

1. Print out enough cards that there is a set of four for each student in the class.  Each student should be able to have four sneakers OR four dresses OR four high heels, etc.

2. Shuffle all the cards randomly, or mix them up to ensure that no student has four of the same type of clothing.  Distribute four cards to each student.

3.  You can imagine a situation for the students such as a clothing store to help practice dialogue.  Students must walk around speaking with their classmates to collect a matching set of clothes.  If student A asks student B for pants, student B must give them a pants card if they have one.  If they don't have one, then student A must ask someone else.

Dialogue might be something like:

A: "Excuse me.  Can you help me?"

B: "Yes, what are you looking for?"

A: "I want/would like/am looking for some pants.  Do you have any pants?"

B: "Oh yes!  Here you are." / "Oh, I'm sorry.  I don't have any pants."

4. The game is finished when enough students have completed a matching set of 4 by asking their classmates.

Clothes Matching (Outfit variety):

1. This game works particularly well after the previous game, as the students have all the same piece of clothing now.  You may need additional cards to add to the game.

2. Students now try to assemble a complete outfit (ex: hat, shirt, pants, socks, sneakers).  You may want to define an outfit for them by the number of pieces they will need, otherwise you will have some students deciding they need two pieces for an outfit and others going for the complete deal.  Again they should be using language like in the dialogue above, or whatever else is the target of the practice.  

Note: Because this is such a visual game, students will attempt to communicate with the pictures instead of spoken language.  It's up to you to keep an eye on them and encourage good communication.

3. Again, the game ends when enough students have collected the required pieces.

Make an outfit:

1. Now that the students have collected their outfit, this is a good time to personalize it and sprinkle in a few fun words for the more advanced students.  They will need the clothing cards, pencils or markers for coloring, tape/glue, and a piece of paper for putting the cards on.

2. Students will color in their outfits in a unique style that represents their personal style.  For example: I have a t-shirt and shorts in my outfit.  I would color the t-shirt black with a band logo and the shorts would be polka-dot jeans, since this is an example of an outfit I commonly wear.

3. Students will present their outfit to the class, describing it.  This is the opportunity to introduce words like "stripes", "lace", "long-sleeved", etc. 

Note:  I have done this with adult learners, and there is always the struggle of doing something fun and active versus doing something that seems childish.  Be careful of the balance here.  Matching games and coloring can seem very childish, but there is valuable practice in it too.  Make sure to really focus on the language they should be using, and the new vocabulary that they have the opportunity to learn about if they seem to be getting grumpy about it.

A few pronunciation games

Honesty Time: I don't have much formal education in teaching Pronunciation, as in a background in linguistics.  I took a semester-long course in Japanese linguistics in college, that's it.  Anything I know was the result of two quick sessions in the CELTA and being shoved into the position of a Pronunciation teacher for 5 weeks.  I definitely did not do the best job for those students, but I made up a few resources that helped break the monotony of fighting against what your brain can hear and your mouth can produce.

Here is one thing I have learned though: pretty much every students wants to take a "pronunciation class" because they are aware that they make the wrong sounds and it makes them feel bad.  They think that a class focused only on making the right sounds will fix the problem and then they will speak perfect English.  The reality of it to me is that a solely Pronunciation-focused class can be very dry and frustrating.  When I taught that pronunciation class, breaking up the frustration with a little fun got spirits up and everyone was ready to keep working.

So I made up these games, based off of a similar game idea the teachers in Japanese schools used often.

I made three worksheets here, but they are REALLY easy to whip up five minutes before class with pen and paper (if you have access to a copier).  You might be familiar with minimal pairs already, but in case you need some help, this site is useful.

You will need one copy for each group of two or three students.  There are two ways to play, one with you as the "caller" and one with a student in each group as a "caller".

Teacher as Caller:

1. Each group of two (or three) students receives one piece of the paper with various words on it.  They should both have a pen or pencil, preferably with different colored ink or something.

2. After making the students familiar with the different sounds of the words on the page, the teacher begins by calling out the words, one at a time.  After the students hear a word, they race to circle the correct word.  The student who circles the correct word (as called out by the teacher) gets the "point".

3. Then the teacher will call out the next word, and the students race again for the correct word on their paper.  The student who has circled the most correct words and gains the most "points" and wins the round.

Student as Caller:

1. In groups of three, two students have different colored pens or pencils, and one student in the group will call out the words one by one.  Like above, the other two students will race to circle the correct word.

2. The student with the most correct words circled wins.

Note: This version is harder for all the students since the "caller" may not make the correct sounds, but if there is an error, the students are very likely to address it and the "caller" is made very aware that they are being misunderstood.  Everyone in the group ends up repeating the difficult word multiple times and usually practicing the target pronunciation.

If you are interested, here are the worksheets to try out on your own.  (They are not the prettiest things...Working on formatting.)

A basic minimal pair worksheet like below, download here.

 The /e/ and /ɪ/ minimal pair worksheet like below can be found here.

The consonant minimal pair /f/, /b/, and /v/ worksheet like below can be found here.