Get your students to bring English into the classroom

English is all around.  Certainly here in Spain.  Walk into any big clothes shop, and you’ll find English on the front of so many T-shirts.

(Of course, the problem is, that not all the spelling or grammar is correct!  I just can’t buy a T-shirt with mistakes on it.  Must be the teacher in me!)

So, why not ask our students to look in their wardrobes at home and to find all the clothes that they have with English on them.  They can wear one of their tops to school, or take selfies of themselves with the T-shirts and sweatshirts.  Then, in class, these words and phrases can be shared, mistakes highlighted.

Maybe they’ve never thought about what the words they’re wearing mean!

And it doesn’t stop there.  Nowadays, there are always huge labels with the washing instructions, where the garment was made and what it’s made of.

Again, this could form part of a study –

Where are most of the clothes they wear made?

What are most of their clothes made of?

They can produce a bar graph or pie chart to show the results.

Again, there will probably be some fun English on the labels – like this one!

This project could continue into the kitchen – looking at the ingredients in food.  Or to the electrical appliances – reading the instructions in English.