Global Activity: Fashion Show

Level:  Elementary (could be adapted to intermediate if clothing is reviewed)

Immediate Application: French 101, Voilà, Leçon 10

Skills: Speaking, writing, listening and some reading.

Structures: Adjective agreement

Functions: Describing; perhaps persuading

Learning Styles:

Good for students who like to work cooperatively; students who feel pressure speaking French but enjoy participating often like to model. The exercise is visual and gets at least one-third of the students to move around.

Background:

Clothing vocabulary and adjective agreement have been presented and practiced in more formal exercises. This activity may be used early on as a communicative/global follow-up to presentation, or later on as review

Materials Neded: none

Overview: Directions to students. [Instructions would be given verbally, in French.]

• We are going to put on a fashion show: The [Cabell Hall Fall] Collection
• To do this you will need to work in groups of three/four. All members will work together to write a commentary; one member will also be a model
• Form your groups.
• Select a model.
• Models, raise your hands.
• All three group members will work together to write 5 (minimum) sentences describing what the model is wearing
• The two group members who are not modeling will read this description (divide it in half or alternate sentences) as the other group member models.

• How might you open the description?
• Useful expressions? (Cette chemise jaune va très bien avec ...)
• Closing remarks?

• Teacher circulates as students write. Check to see that students have decided who is reading and in what order. Some students who actually watch fashion shows do jaunty little duo presentations.
• Try to catch errors and guide self-correction.
• Let students know when they have only 2 minutes left and tell them to wrap it up.
• Stop them no matter how much they beg for more time--and even if one group falls a sentence short.

• Ask models to line up in any order in the back of the room or off to the side. Tell remaining students to be ready to describe their model as he/she approaches the front  of the room (The "show" moves quickly when set up this way)
• Do not interrupt the presentation with error correction. Take notes on errors and do a global  correction afterwards.

Go over important corrections--those within the focus of this and previous chapters. Use the chalkboard. Involve students. Ask "What is so and so wearing?"  "What color is thus and such?" (If you have time consider a short dictée or practice questions orales based on sentences used in the fashion show.)

Expansion:

Lots of possibilities, including writing a review of the fashion show.

Comments:

I invented this activity with a colleague the first year I taught as a TA and have used it subsequently with many, many groups. It has never bombed. I've tried variations of the set-up above and have found this to be the most  expedient system.
 

Copyright 1998 by Cheryl Krueger
Department of French
University of Virginia