| LESSON OVERVIEW
In this Business English speaking class, students watch a video about the future of bricks-and-mortar retail shopping and discuss shopping trends.
C1 / Advanced45 min
60 minSpeaking ClassUnlimited Plan
This is a Speaking Class worksheet. It includes a variety of tasks that let your students practise their speaking skills. This lesson format does not focus on grammar or vocabulary. Learn more about it here.
WARM-UP & VIDEO
At the beginning of the speaking class, students do a warm-up activity in which they need to explain what makes them buy a certain product online or offline. They have to consider products of different types (e.g. food, cosmetics and toiletries, clothes). After that, students read some statistics regarding online and offline shopping. Before they start the speaking part of the task, students look at some statistics. They try to find phrases to describe offline shops and shopping as opposed to online shops and shopping (e.g. bricks-and-mortar, in-store). The phrases will be used in the second part of this Business English speaking class. Then, students discuss the reasons behind the statistics and say whether they would be the same for their countries. Finally, students watch the video about the future of retail shopping and complete one statement using the information they found out from the video.
DISCUSSION & CASE STUDIES
After the video, students discuss some questions regarding bricks-and-mortar shopping. They share their experience with online and offline blending, discuss online and offline blending and consider what shopping might look like in the future. Then, they look at four trends in offline shopping (e.g. loyalty programmes, checkout-free shops, click and collect) and discuss whether they will grow in popularity or not. In the final part of this Business English speaking class, students decide what strategies they would suggest to some bricks-and-mortar businesses that are about to open in their area. The businesses vary from small local shops to national chains. Students need to consider online and offline blending, as well as other trends discussed in the lesson.
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My feelings are this. The lesson doesn’t really offer much in the way of things to speak about. I tried it with a few students and a lot of the questions overlap with the same responses or they are just too broad – like the statistics one. I think this could be longer and more specific in some areas. When the lesson is not too broad it is then too specific “do you know about any blended digital and physical shopping experiences?”. I feel like this one just missed the mark. It’s very hard to use.
Thanks for sharing your opinion, Mike! It’s definitiely some valuable feedback for us. To clarify a bit, the target audience for this lesson are people from the e-commerce industry who, in theory, should have some idea about current and future trends, hence the more specific questions about blended shopping experience trend. Nevertheless, we included some statistics and general questions at the beginning to encourage non-e-commerce people to speak and have some details to refer to. Is there a chance that you had this lesson with people that haven’t been working in e-commerce at all?
I’d love to hear more from you, if you’re willing email us at [email protected].
I adapted this lesson to include talking about the future and the use of future tenses. Also the video is a means to introduce new vocabulary, practice pronunciation, identify phrases, find synonyms associated with the retail and digital environments and check understanding. Further questions are easily obtained using AI. The lesson gave me some good ideas and material for adding value.
Thanks for sharing the ideas!