Sales Pitch

I'm a new ALT and this was one of my more successful lessons so far. I did a similar lesson myself when I was a student in university, but I've changed it up quite a bit to make it easier to complete.
*This does potentially require a small investment-- I spent about $10 at Daiso buying the strangest products they had at the store, but if you have some random things laying around, feel free to use those too.

SALES PITCH

I begin by explaining some terms like "products" and "persuasive", and then what a sales pitch is: in short, I say "I want you to buy something!"

I give my own sales pitch for my fake/ridiculous product to the class so they can understand what I'm looking for: lively and engaged speaking, interaction with the audience, etc. Definitely amp up the goofiness and be excited; all my classes responded well to this.
I've included the example script for my sales pitch, I passed this out to students to help them write their own.

Next I broke them up into groups: my smaller classes were 4 to a group, bigger ones 5 or 6. I then walked around with my 'mystery product bag' and passed out a wacky item to each group that would serve as their product. They all got a kick out of the weird things they got (ex., a shoe form holder, a light-up star wand, a ladle, or a mini elephant car toy). Since I had leftover 'products', I offered each group an opportunity: if they didn't like their product, they could trade with other groups. Or, they could trade with me for a brand new product, but they could only trade with me ONCE and would be stuck with the new product. The looks on some groups faces when they trade their decent product in for something worse was hilarious, but it forced them to think creatively and critically.

Then I gave each group a worksheet (attached) where they would answer questions about their product, and complete their sales pitch script. My rule is that every member of the group must speak, so they divided up sections of the script for each group member.
I then assist each group with vocab/grammar, and give some ideas to struggling groups.
During the second class each group presented their product. I had each group write the name of their product and its price on the blackboard before presenting.

The best part about this lesson is the creativity aspect, so I was okay with any idea they put forth. A magic wand that cures baldness? Sure. A video game that costs $1,000,000? Okay, why not. My students also had fun demonstrating their products to the audience, and involving the audience in their sales pitch. Overall I think it was a good lesson for practicing presentation skills and thinking creatively.

Files:

Small files

Sales Pitch Worksheet.pdf (122 KB)

Sales Pitch Example.pdf (259 KB)