Shopping in English

Today was my third English lesson. One of the topics my co-workers asked to learn about was phrases used when shopping. For the lesson, I created four piles of fake bhat (bills and paper coins) and brought in English flash cards. The first thing I did was write English phrases on the board:

Good Morning. May I help you?
Yes, hello. Do you have any _________?
Yes, we do.
Thank you. Can you tell me how much it/they cost(s)?
Yes, it/they cost(s) _________ bhat.
Oh, that is very expenisve. Would you take _______ bhat?
No, but I would take _________ bhat.
OK, thank you.
Thank you. Please come again.

We practiced reading each sentence and I made sure that they knew what everything meant (using the shopping section in my handy Thai phrase book). I then handed them each a pile of fake money and three English flash cards with various products one them, explaining that they would each buy one product and sell one product using the conversation above (or a variation thereof).

I asked Sua to start because he would be a good example for the rest. He bought a pair of socks from Fawn (whose English is also quite good) and she drove a hard bargain. We all had a good laugh over the price of her socks.

Next Pong bought jeans from Moo (both of them reading directly from the board, but really enjoying the bargaining part). Fawn offered to buy the jeans from Pong at 210 bhat and Pong was having nothing of it. She wanted 500 bhat. Fawn got her down to 300 bhat, but when she went to hand her the money, she only handed her 210 bhat. That got a rise out of Pong and we all had a good laugh.

Next it was Sua's turn to run the shop and he had a coat for Pong. When Pong asked how much it would be, Sua said, "Oooh, very expensive. This is imported from the U.S.A. We don't have in Thailand. Very nice. Not cheap." He didn't even crack a smile. As we all tried to control our laughter at his portrayal of a stingy salesman, Pong tried futiley to get him to lower his price. Finally (after he consulted his imaginary wife) he said, "Ok, since you are my first customer, I will give you a deal. But you cannot tell anyone else how much I gave you this for. This is a very expensive coat." Pong agreed and they settled for 300 bhat.

I was extremly pleased with the lesson as everyone seemed to really get into it and enjoy themselves. Hopefully they learned something, too!

Tomorrow we are learning telephone conversations (geared towards businesses). I've got to figure out a way to make that fun. That seems to be the key!