What people wear can say something about a person's personality,

style, interests, and at times, employment situation, and dressing

appropriately for different circumstances can be important. For each of
the following situations below, decide on what clothing (shirt, shoes,
tie, dress, uniform, etc.) would be appropriate and think about the
reasons. Then, use the Internet to find the items of clothing, determine
the cost of each, and compare what you find online to what you might
find in a local clothing store in your area.
 a job interview
 a wedding of a close friend
 a class at a university
 a first date
 a church or religious service
 a hiking trip in the mountains (during summer/in the winter)

 What do you think of when you hear the word “fashion”?

 What’s the most stylish thing in your wardrobe? When do you wear it?

 What’s the difference between fashion and style?

 What, if anything, would you change about the way you dress?

 Which designers or clothes shops do you like the best? Whatʼs so great about
them?

 Close your eyes and try to describe what the other people in your group are
wearing. Was it easy or difficult?

 What’s your favourite item of clothing? Why?

 What’s the latest fashion in your country? Would you wear it?

 What would you wear for a romantic dinner? What about for a night out with
your friends?

 What’s the most expensive outfit you’ve ever worn? When did you wear it?

 Do you follow fashion?

 Imagine you had to dress the person to your

right. What would you put them in?
  Is there a difference between high fashion and art?

 Is fashion important? Why/ Why not?

 Whatʼs your look? What look would you most

like to go for?

 Do you ever wear uncomfortable clothes because they are fashionable?

 Whose fashion sense do you most admire?

 How long do you normally spend getting

dressed in the morning?

 What would be the best thing about being a fashion model? What would be the
worst?

 If a fashion journalist asked to take your picture for a style magazine, would you
let them?

At the Clothes Shop

ESL/EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 20 Minutes

In this practical teaching activity, students practice various clothes shop conversations.
First, students work in pairs and separate three jumbled conversations. Students read
through the customer and shop assistant responses and label the lines 1, 2, or 3,
depending on which conversation they belong to. Students practice the conversations
aloud. Students then create their own shopping conversation using the new phrases they
have been taught. After that, they present their shopping conversation to the class.

At the Clothes Shop.PDF

End of Season Sale

ESL/EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes

In this authentic clothes shopping role-play, students act as shop assistants and customers
at an end of season sale. Half the students are shop assistants and the other half are
customers. Each student is given a role card. The customers have details about the items
they want to buy including the size and colour. The sales assistants have information about
the items they are selling. The objective is for the shop assistants to sell all the items on
their cards and for the customers to buy all the items on their shopping list. The
customers have a budget for each item. Some items are too expensive to buy but if they
save money on other items, they can use the money they saved to put towards an item that
is over their budget. Customers record how much they spend and save on each item.
When everyone has finished, the customers report back to the class on the items
they bought and how much money they managed to save.

End of Season Sale.PDF

Clothing Quiz 
ESL/EFL Writing Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes

Here is a fun class quiz to help students learn or revise vocabulary related to clothes and
fashion. The class is divided into teams of four or five and each student is given a copy of
the worksheet. Students then select a secretary from their team who will write the answers
to the questions. The teacher reads out each clothing question in turn to the class. The
students discuss the answer to the question in their teams and the secretary writes the
answer as quickly as possible. Then, the teacher moves on to the next question.  When all
the questions have been answered, the secretaries swap their worksheet with another
team for marking. Teams win one point for each correct answer. The team with the most
points at the end of the quiz wins. As an alternative, you could make each question worth
two points by adding an extra point for spelling.

Clothing Quiz.PDF

Containers
ESL/EFL Writing Activity - Elementary - 10 Minutes

This ESL writing task helps you to teach your students' container words. Students complete
a list of shopping items. They have to write in the correct container words that go with each
item. They can use some words more than once. In addition, several shopping items may
have more than one correct answer.

Containers.PDF

 
It's a Question of Style
ESL/EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 25 Minutes

Here is a superb teaching activity for elementary students. In the activity, student ask and
answer questions about clothes and style. The class is split into pairs. Students interview
one another and make notes of their partner's answers to the questions. When the students
have finished interviewing one another, the questionnaires are taken in and redistributed.
The students then read the answers on the new questionnaire and guess who it belongs to.

It's a Question of Style.PDF

Let's Go Shopping
ESL/EFL Speaking Activity - Elementary - 20 Minutes

You can use this fun role-play activity to teach your students shopping phrases. The class
is divided into groups of six, and each group is given a set of role cards. Three students are
shop assistants. The other three students are shoppers. They visit each shop and buy the
things on their lists, they note the prices they pay, and calculate how much they've spent.
Then, the shoppers and shop assistants swap roles.

Let's Go Shopping.PDF

Things you wear

ESL/EFL Writing and Brainstorming Activity - Elementary - 15 Minutes

In this fun activity, students work in pairs and brainstorm words connected to clothing and
footwear. This activity is great for reviewing clothes vocabulary. The students are split into
pairs and given a copy of the worksheet. The students brainstorm the answers to ten
questions about clothing. When time is up, the pairs swap their worksheets with each
other. The pair with the most correct answers is the winner.

Things you wear.PDF

What can you buy?

ESL/EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Elementary - 30 Minutes

This impressive supplementary worksheet teaches students about collective nouns that are
used when shopping. Students also learn about different types of shops and what they sell.
Each student is given a copy of the worksheet. Students begin by matching collective
nouns with shopping items. Then, students test each other by covering up the collective
nouns. They then take it in turns to try to remember the collective noun that goes with each
word. Students then do the second activity that concentrates on different types of shops
and the things they sell. When they have finished, the teacher writes up some shopping
dialogues on the board for the students to practice.

What can you buy?.PDF

Going Shopping
ESL/EFL Writing and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 1 Hour +

Here is a link to an excellent activity for teaching shopping expressions. Students begin by
working with a partner. They take it in turns to read different characters in a shopping role-
play. Students then substitute different shopping expressions into the dialogue. After that,
the pairs complete another dialogue with appropriate shopping expressions. Finally, the
students work together to create their own shopping dialogue with the phrases they have
learnt. These dialogues are presented to the class.

Going Shopping.PDF

Shopping Around
ESL/EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 35 Minutes

This noteworthy role-play teaches students to ask for things in different shops by acting as
customers and shop assistants. The class is divided into six groups. Each group is given a
shop name card, shopping item cards, and a shopping list. The object of the role-play is for
each group to obtain the products on their shopping list. To do this, they send out one
student from their group to obtain the first item on the list from another shop. When they
have got the shopping item card, they return to their table, and the next student goes off in
search of the next item on the list.

Shopping Around.PDF

Shopping for Clothes

ESL/EFL Reading, Writing and Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 25 Minutes

Below is a link to a challenging activity that teaches students about clothes shopping
expressions. The students read a story to introduce them to some of the phrases they will
need for the activity. Students then complete crossword puzzles about shopping for
clothes. There are three puzzles in total and each puzzle uses the same shopping
expressions as clues, but different words from the sentences are missing. 

Shopping for Clothes.PDF

 

Shopping Situations
ESL/EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 30 Minutes

In this enjoyable role-play activity, students associate shopping phrases to different

situations. Then, they use the phrases in two role-plays. Each student is given a copy of the
worksheet. The students read through a set of shopping phrases. They then decide which
phrase belongs to which shopping situation. Once they have done that, the students are
divided into pairs. Students read the role-cards on their worksheet and use the phrases to
come up with two shopping conversations. When they have completed their role-plays, the
students present their conversations to the class.

Shopping Situations.PDF

Shopping Role-Play
ESL/EFL Speaking Activity - Pre-intermediate - 25 Minutes

Here is a beneficial teaching activity that gives students practice speaking in two different
shopping situations. The first conversation takes place in a newsagent and the other in a
department store. The teacher starts by eliciting the shopping language from the students
before the activity begins. Each student is then given a worksheet. The students practice
the two situations playing both the shop assistant and customer roles with a partner.

Shopping Role-Play.PDF

Unusual Clothing
ESL/EFL Writing Activity - Intermediate - 15 Minutes

To start the teaching activity, students are separated into small teams. Each team is given
a worksheet. On the worksheet are twenty unusual articles of clothing. Each team has five
minutes to sort them into two groups: clothing worn above the belt and clothing worn below
the belt. The team with the most correct answers wins.

Unusual Clothing.PDF