Body Image- What is Beautiful in your Country?

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/specials/nat-geo-live-specials/cobb-bonusbeauty-nglive/ 

Body Image and Self Esteem

A great segue or transition from a unit on physical descriptions is a class activity or even entire unit on body image. This is an especially great follow up for the magazine activity in my physical description post.

You could even extend it into bullying and tolerance depending on your students' levels. I have to admit, I did some of these activities with my beginner level students and they still really enjoyed it so don't be afraid to take a chance. As long as you have great visuals, multimedia, vocabulary building and of course- scaffold- your lesson, it will be a productive and effective one.

A great way to introduce the topic is to show one of the Dove Ads. They say so much without actually saying anything and are great conversation starters.

Click here for some extra activities from the Dove web site, specifically aimed at young girls. 

After talking about the video and getting student responses, we briefly discussed magazines and how they show a distorted view of beauty and the human body. If you don't want to show the video or you would like something to supplement it, you can also show them some photo shopping flubs. Here are two websites that have some funny and amusing examples. Photoshop Fails 1 , Photoship fails 2


Beauty around the World

We continued the lesson with this video from Jessica Simpson's the Price of Beauty. At first I wasn't sure about the show but when I actually watched an episode I found that it really brought up a lot of important personal, social and global issues.  The video portrays how, unlike in the USA and many other countries, in some societies being overweight is a sign of beauty and affluence. I stopped the video from time to time to ask students comprehension questions and after I split them into groups and asked them to write a list of characteristsics that is beautiful or attractive n their country. After sharing our findings I asked students to write their personal idea of beauty and to find if it differed from that of the greater society.

Continuing with body image, here is a video that addresses how the media and specifically the fashion industry affect our body images. It is from ABC Australia and also includes the transcript!

Body Image Video-ABC Australia

If you want to focus on the media aspect you can use the link below for an article about photoshopping and warning labels on magazines. It includes comprehension checks and exercises. I'm not a huge fan of worksheets but this is always another option.

Breaking News English- Body Image Reading


A great follow-up would be to bring in real magazines (yay for realia) and ask students to design a poster which displays what they just learned about body image. Ask them to be creative, candid and to use the pictures form the magazines as well as any words or phrases they wish.

Music

 

TLC-Unpretty

  

Christina Aguilera- Beautiful

 Bruno Mars- Just the Way You Are

Describing Physical Appearances

The old saying goes, "don't judge a book by its cover". Though I wholeheartedly agree that it is never good to make assumptions, having students make judgements and predictions is a great way to not only check their comprehension but also a creative way to have them organize, analyze and synthesize new information.Here are some ways they can do just that with description words and body vocabulary.

Activities



Sketch Artist

This activity requires students to be put into pairs. Ideally each partner should receive a print out of a different caricature but if you don't have access to a printer you could also just have one student face the board where the picture is projected and one have their back to it. Once the caricature is shown they must help their partner draw a picture by describing in English or whatever the target language may be (I also used this when teaching Italian), the features of the person's face. You could also change this a bit and give a crime scene scenario. Later, after the allotted time is finished, the students can finally see the picture, share theirs with the class and then switch.

Below is a website of some caricatures of famous celebrities but if you don't see any you like, a simple google search will do the trick.

http://naldzgraphics.net/inspirations/30-hilarious-and-entertaining-caricatures-of-famous-celebrities/


Guess Who?

 Another fun activity is to split students in groups and have them describe the person in the picture given to them. Later, after the students all finish, they give the picture back and the class has to describe who is who or which descriptions belong to which people. This is also fun because in my experience it has led into a debate of opinion. For example, my students argued whether or not Justin Bieber was talented or Madonna was beautiful.


Readings and Discussion Starters

Easy Group Discussıon Questıons:
Is it better to be feared or loved?
........................  tall or short?
........................  rich or beautiful?
........................  intelligent or artistic?
........................  athletic or intelligent?

Body Language from around the World 

Is the "OK" hand symbol okay in every country? Does a thumbs up always mean good job? This is a fun activity for students of all ages, though it may be better for older students since some may not be age -appropriate or taboo. A fun way to have students interact with the information is to ask them to first make a list of common symbols from their country and then guess the meaning of images from other countries.

Here is one of many articles about different examples of body language from around the world.:

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/a-travellers-guide-to-avoiding-faux-pas/story-e6frfq80-1226112216345

The Most Beautiful Woman/Man in the World

This is a great activity for young adults and teens that is educational and fun.

Materials:
Magazines/Newspapers
Scissors
Glue
Poster-board

Students are put into groups of 3 or 4 (depending on the class size) and given the materials. They are asked to cut out images of (appropriate) body parts and glue them on their poster boards to create "the perfect" person. Then, they will present to the class their findings using the vocabulary they learned in previous classes. This is a great group exercise because students can also be assigned many different challenging roles such as image finder, description writer, speaker etc. not to mention it's just alot of fun (which is always a perk!)

Wacky Body Part Reading
Something that can include pop culture and would be funny for students would be to read an article about how valuable (socially and financially) some famous people's body parts are. It sounds strange, which it is, but supposedly some celebrities have actually insured their various body parts for millions of dollars. Below is a link.

http://www.businessinsider.com/20-celebrities-who-insured-their-bodies-for-millions-2012-3?op=1