Materials: Guidelines

This is a work-sheet that was especially popular with those of my students who liked shopping, which in Japan was nearly all of them. I have changed the prices from Yen to Euros because I felt that it covered a greater range of countries and is also quite topical for the two hundred or so countries (like Britain) that aren't in "Euro-zone" yet.

In the first part, students match eight shopping-oriented words with approximate meanings. You could pre-teach / elicit these words if you want, but it may be better to let students use dictionaries for only those words that they really don't know.

Once everybody in the class has the same answers for the first part, you can move on to the gap-fill sentences. Here, students use the same words to complete a number of sentences expressing positive or negaitive attitudes to prices of certain items. Probable correct answers are as follows (if you don't agree stick to what you think):

1. bargain
2. save
3. reduced
4. special offer
5. sell-by date
6. genuine
7. free
8. imitation

The final discussion part works best if the prices are a little contentious. If you look at them and think that they are not contentious, you might want to change them a bit (use white-out and a pen if necessary). Before students discuss the "bargains" it's a good idea to get them individually to mark their opinions on the sheet alongside each sentence, thus getting them to commit themselves to a certain viewpoint and making it harder to simply acquiesce when the rest of the group thinks something else.

You have a choice of two different methods of getting this handout to your printer. It all depends on whether your computer has "Adobe Acrobat Reader" installed. If it has, then this would be the recommended method for printing out the worksheet. Try selecting the "PDF (Adobe Acrobat)" link below. If all goes well, a new application window should appear including a print button, which when selected will print out one copy.

If, on the other hand you do not have "Adobe Acrobat" select the "HTML (web page)" link below. (Also, this method is recommended for users of Netscape Navigator, which seems to have trouble interacting with the Acrobat program like this.) If all goes well, a new browser window will open, from which you can either click the "print button" on the toolbar or open the "File" menu, select "Print" and then adjust the "Print Dialog Box" to your own preferences.

The final link below is to enable you to print this "instruction page" if you want to. Click on the link, and when the page appears on a new screen you will be able to print it using the browser's "print button" or "file menu". After printing, close the window again so that you can continue to navigate around the site.

For teacher training courses, English courses in Bristol UK and free interactive exercises, visit The Language Project Website.