It can be tricky to continuously come up with new material when teaching English to children. The activity below, which focuses on advertisements, not only develops children’s English skills but also works on their communication.
Building Knowledge and Vocabulary
It is important to start the activity with some basic discussion to ensure all the children in the group understand the concept and become familiar with the vocabulary that is about to be used. A good way to do this is to show the group some familiar brands, for example Coca-Cola, Playmobil and Snickers. These can be shown in picture format or by bringing in some of the actual packaging. Children are usually very quick to start talking about the brands, provided they know them.
Talking with the group about different advertisements they know for each brand is a good way to broaden the discussion. If the children are shy to give examples, the teacher can pick a well known advertisement and start describing it. Advertisements that are funny, have a jingle, feature kids or have been shown many times are good ones to go with. It is also important at this stage to ensure that the children know what advertisements do, i.e. they want someone to buy their item, as this is something that the lesson will go back to.
Creating a Chocolate Bar Wrapper
The next stage of the activity is to provide each child with a piece of paper. A rectangle, chocolate bar outline can be put on the paper if needed. The children are then encouraged to design, with art materials or just coloured pencils, the wrapper for a new chocolate bar that they have made.
It is important that children are encouraged to think of a name for their chocolate bar and that they make the wrapper as appealing as possible. Many children like to write details on the wrapper, for example if it contains nuts or what type of chocolate it is. For this it can be useful to either write some relevant words on the board or provide each child with a small list of words that they might need.
Practising English by Presenting
When all the children have finished their chocolate bar wrapper, it is time for them to try and sell the chocolate to the group. One by one the teacher can invite each child to the front of the room to show his or her design and to tell the group about the chocolate. This is often a time when the teacher will need to provide some prompts such as “How much does your chocolate bar cost?” and “Does it have nuts in it?”
It is useful to write specific words on the board that are likely to come up again for the next child as he or she can then use the words on the board as a prompt.
Using advertisements to work on children’s English and communication skills may seem an usual combination at first, however advertisements are an excellent method to get children talking. In addition, when used in combination with an activity that involves the children creating a new product or design it can result in a fun and creative activity.
Heather Tucker - Heather Tucker is an experienced writer, photographer and traveller. Having lived in four countries (USA, Estonia, United Kingdom and the ...
