Classroom Activities Part IV: Clothing

Clothing is a very common topic that we speak about in our mother tongue’s but rarely think about teaching other than glossing over some vocabulary and pretending like it will stick. To this day I struggle explain clothing in both French and German. But I can explain to you the deep significance of cyclical inner renewal in the Mauritanian tradition of Islam in French but not English. So honestly, I feel like I won on that one. We’re lucky as English speakers because we have the beautiful verb “to wear”. We don’t really realize how blessed we are that there is a word solely dedicated to the act of, well, WEARING clothing.

Other languages don’t necessarily have that privilege, and here I will use the word privilege because using “to wear” is sooooooooooo much easier than most other languages when it comes to clothing. For example, the French say “mettre” or “porter” which translate as “to put” or “to carry or transport”. The first is for putting on clothes whereas the second means you’re actually wearing it. However, when you want to ask what to wear, you would literally ask, “what am I going to put on?” Because to ask what you’re “porter” sounds ridiculous. In German, they use the verb “tragen” which also generally means “to carry”. So one would say, “ich trage einen Hut,” which means, “I’m wearing a hat,” or, more literally, “I’m carrying a hat” (implied that it’s on my head and not in my hand.) In English we have two phrases to distinguish whether I have a hat on my head (I’m wearing a hat) or whether I’m holding it in my hand (I’m carrying a hat). God bless the English language.

Anyways, just like the cooking lesson, I draw a variety of terribly sketched articles of clothes on the blackboard with some labels. I do want to defend myself in the sense that since I did this process 19 times in a single week, my drawings got better each time. Not perfect, but better. These articles of clothing included: shirt, shorts, pants, skirt, dress, t-shirt, button down, shoes, sneakers, sandals, flip flops, boots, belt, hat, bracelet, earrings, watch, neckless, socks, and maybe a few others I may have forgotten. I also give my students three easy questions and how to respond:

“What are you wearing?” – “I am wearing. . .”

“What did you wear?” – “I wore. . .”

“What will you wear? What are you going to wear?” – “I will wear. . ./I am going to wear. . .”

Afterwards, we go through a lot of theatrical pronunciation where I say something like, “I am wearing a hat!” as I point to my hat followed by a chorus of, “I am wearing a hat!” from my students. Then, I have them split off into pairs and have them ask each other the three questions I wrote on the board and respond to each other using the corresponding phrases. I only do this after I’ve gone through all the vocabulary at least twice and have made a complete fool of myself by pointing to various articles of clothing I’m wearing or explaining what I did or will wear.

As the students have their conversations, I go around and occasionally interrogate a student. “What are you wearing today?”

90% of the time I get a deer in the headlights. But they eventually respond and usually do pretty well after a little prompting. Then I have them ask me the same question, and I give them a good response. I do this 4 or 5 times randomly before gathering my students’ attention, or at least doing the best can with that part of teaching, and have them play, “What is Mr. BALD wearing.” I hold out my arms and ask them, “What is Mr. BALD wearing? What am I wearing?”

My students raise their hands and start pointing out articles of clothing that I’m wearing. “You are wearing a watch.”

“Yes,” I say. “I am wearing a watch.” I point to my watch. “I am wearing a watch.” I put my finger to my ear which they know is the signal that they should repeat what I just said because I want to hear them. Correspondingly, I hear a chorus of, “I am wearing a watch!”

“What else is Mr. BALD wearing?” I ask.

“You are wearing a shirt!”

“Yes, I am wearing a shirt. I am wearing a shirt.” My finger points to my ear.

The class responds, “I am wearing a shirt!”

You get the idea.

This goes on until they run through all my clothing that matches what I’ve written on the board. I end class by running through the vocabulary again and the questions and phrases. If there is a lot of time, I pick on some of the noisier students by asking them what they’re wearing or what they wore the day before. We wrap up class and I head out after making sure there are no more questions. Some of the more advanced classes will ask about how to say hair tie, underwear, bra, spandex, and other articles of clothing that I don’t normally cover.

Now you may be wondering why I have so few activities in my classes. A normal class in the United States would always include a structured warm up, pre-activity, activity, and post-work. As much as I would love to do all of that as it better corresponds with my view of effective education, I don’t have the luxury of an hour or hour and a half. I get 45min if I’m lucky. And after setting up, I probably get 40min as a best-case scenario. There’s also a language barrier when explaining directions. With my older students, I only use English. With my middle students, I explain in English and then French. With my low students, I only use French. Also trying to organize activities in small, crowded classrooms stocked full of 40-50 students is an exhausting feat in itself. Any transition requires at least 2-5min, plus another 5-8min to explain directions, 2-5min to explain directions again after the first time fails. By then, I’ve already eaten up 11 to 19 minutes of my 45 (if I’m lucky), that’s a third or more lost to logistics. The time constraint and the language barrier are just two of those challenges I’ve had to learn to overcome, mostly by prioritizing my objectives and acknowledging that activities are short, and I probably only get one per class. As such, my economist brain weighs the opportunity costs of various activities with their corresponding benefits. My objective for this class? I just want them to be able to use the verb “to wear” in the present, past, and future. Not a lot, but if they can do it, even while struggling with the new vocabulary, then the mission has been accomplished.

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.