CLIL video activities and key
1 CLIL  Trendsetters
Summary
What makes something trendy? There’s no formula so businesses
have to rely on trendsetters to tell them what’s cool and what’s not.
In this video, we follow two Japanese girls who are known for their
trendsetting ability and see them in action in Tokyo’s most famous
shopping district as they evaluate and react to various products.
Background
Shibuya is a fashionable area of Tokyo and an important
shopping district.
Before you watch
1 Think about vocabulary.
• On the board write trend and trendsetter. Explain that trend
is another word for fashion and a trendsetter is someone
who sets a new trend.
• You could also revise some appropriate adjectives at this
point such as trendy and fashionable.
While you watch
2 Watch without sound.
• Tell students they are going to watch a video about
trendsetting in Tokyo.
• Play the video without sound and ask students to make
notes about what the information they think will feature
in the voiceover. Weaker students could write down ten
words they think they are likely to hear in the story.
• Students compare their ideas and attempt to put the
story together.
• Play the video again with the sound for students to check
their ideas.
3 Watch and write questions.
• Play the recording again.
• Students watch and write four questions about the video to
ask their partner. Monitor while students do this task and
help weaker students to form their questions.
• Put students into pairs to ask and answer the questions.
Suggested questions
1  Why do businesses pay attention to Saeko and Yuko?
2  What do the girls do with new products?
3  What are the girls trying out today?
4  What are they helping to shape?
130 CLIL video activities and key
After you watch
4 Work in groups. Think of current trends.
• Put students into small groups.
• Ask students to think of things, e.g. music, clothes, films
and computer games, which are beginning to become
popular with young people.
• Once students have decided on their list, ask them to think
about how these things have become popular, e.g. because
celebrities like them or because they had successful
TV adverts.
• Ask one student from each group to share their ideas with
the class.
At home
5 Think about who or what influences you to
buy things.
• Ask students to choose a few objects that they have bought
that mean a lot to them. These objects could be anything
from an item of clothing to a technological gadget, a
musical instrument or a computer game.
• Students should think about why the objects mean so much
to them and why they wanted to buy the object so much.
They should then decide whether they wanted it in order to
be part of a current trend.
• At the beginning of the next lesson, students can compare
their idea with a partner.
Trendsetters
Narrator: How do trends start? Where do they come from and
who starts them? What makes some things desirable?
Who determines what will sell? And how do they
become a part of popular culture? In some countries,
like Japan, trends are vital. Companies are always
looking forward and want to know what’s coming.
And that’s why they watch these two girls, Saeko and
Yuko. Saeko and Yuko are trendsetters. Businesses pay
attention to what they do, what they wear and where
they shop. In Tokyo’s Shibuya district, companies know
that if these girls like something they’ve got a product
that will sell!
They say, ‘Sell to one girl in Shibuya and by tomorrow,
you’ve sold to every girl in Japan.’ Some businesses hire
trendsetters, like Saeko and Yuko, to test new products.
Today the girls are trying out a new photo booth. It
takes videos instead of photos.
Girl 1: Here it comes. Look at the hearts coming out. I think
the photo booth is easier to use.
Girl 2: We had fun though.
Narrator: This is important information for the company. Paying
attention to trendsetters makes good business sense.
People like Saeko and Yuko know what they like and
they know what people their age like. They are helping
to shape popular culture. So what do you think is going
to be the next big thing?