Valentine's Day - 'Print Your Guy'

Yes, I know I'm a soppy romantic young lady, but I couldn't help sharing with you this video you can use in class over this week or even better on Valentine's Day. My students really enjoyed watching this short film and found it much easier to learn and memorise the target language I had decided to introduce with it.

Video : Print your guy

Level: B1-upwards 

Age: Teens/Adults

Target language: Adjectives to describe personality + character

Procedure:

1. Warm-up: Vision off 

I told my students I was going to play a short film but they couldn't watch it. They had to listen and guess what was happening. 

Typical answers were: Someone is watching TV. It's a TV advert. It's about love. Etc.

Another option would be starting off with telling students the beginning of the story.

Pamela lives on her own in an apartment in Paris. One evening while watching a movie she sees a commercial for a company who claim they can print her perfect guy, by logging on at printyourguy.com. Very excited, she runs to her computer to order one, but when it arrives, she realizes that the product wasn't exactly what she was expecting! 

Ask students, 'Why didn't the product live up to her expectations?' (You might need to elicit the meaning of 'live up to')

After getting some feedback from the students I showed them these screenshots.

Screenshot from 'Print your guy'

Screenshot from 'Print your guy'

2. Target language: Adjectives to describe personality

Starting from the principle we never know how much our learners know, I asked all the class to tell me what their perfect guy/girl would be like by only using three words.

Of course, just a few people were confident enough to answer, (but I had already expected that).

I boarded the adjectives that came up, I elicited their meanings and drilled their pronunciation. 

Then I gave each group a set of adjectives and they had to find their definitions on the post-it notes I had stuck on the walls before the lesson started.

Some adjectives and their definitions

3. Speaking activity:

3.a  Predictive task

Back to the short film! I asked my students to look at the picture of Pamela (the main character of the video) and predict which type of guy she was looking for. In pairs learners used the TL learnt and then shared their ideas with the other students. I showed them the short film till 02:16, then we had some whole-class feedback. 

3.b Drawing dictation

The second 'perfect guy' is the manly type. Students worked in pairs, one could watch the video (till 03:28) while the other one had to draw what their partner was dictating them. We had some feedback and voted for the best drawing, too.

3.c Free conversation

Students felt that the third attempt was the right one and instinctively expressed their opinions about who the perfect guy could be. I was really glad that they were autonomous and for a few minutes I let them speak without interrupting them. However, as a teacher, I need to take into account time management, so I asked them to watch the short film till 04:25.

4. Writing activity: Review

After four attempts Pamela has not found her 'perfect guy' yet. I asked students to put themselves in Pamela's shoes and write a short review about the website and its products.

5. Cooling-down activity: Reflection

I let students watch the short movie till the end and I asked them about the meaning of 'perfect match'. I was really satisfied with the fact that students felt so comfortable that they spoke about their private lives and relationships.  

I hope you will spend a great Valentine's Day with your students and loved ones!

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