I am not a fan of shopping just to shop. I am not actually a fan of shopping at all. But if I must shop, I do figure that I might as well use it to my language learning advantage.
Strategic shopping is one way to do this. It is just one way to take control of the interactions that you have with the language and it’s easy.
The idea is simple one: use the act of shopping for an item as an opportunity to explore the language as well as receive lots of comprehensible input. I am not talking about the daily shopping that we do to get groceries, but rather the specific item shopping we do when we need/want a particular item.
Two years ago my watch broke. I am a person who likes to wear a watch and so I decided that I had the money to go out and get a new one. I had two choices for finding a watch. I could go down to the local super store where I could find a ton of different options in one location or I could walk the strip – the strip being the main road past our home on which stores of every shape and kind can be found – including a lot of small stores that sell watches.
I decided for strategic over easy. There are a few steps to strategic shopping.
Step One
Build background knowledge. Look up the words associated with the item you are looking to purchase. Digital, analogue, band, clasp, light, alarm, timer, stopwatch. These were a few of the words I looked up and wrote in my notebook. This needn’t take more than five minutes in most cases.
Step Two
Go to a store that sells your item and shop for it. Let the store owner know that you are shopping for a watch and that you are a language learner. Ask the questions you want to ask. Listen. Ask for them to repeat things. Ask them to write things down. Thank them. Leave.
Step Three
Repeat step two at another store.
Step Four
Repeat step two at another store.
Step Five
Repeat step two at another store.
I think you get the picture and of course you can repeat the process as much as you like. Eventually you will need to stop and return to buy the most thought through watch of your life.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Ready to get serious about learning another language?
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[...] Strategic Shopping: Admit it. You love to shop. For language learning, shopping strategically will increase the amount of comprehensible input you receive. Chose an item that you need (want) to buy. Before you head out to shop for it, prepare yourself by looking up key vocabulary and writing down some key questions. Then proceed to the first store and ask the clerk about the product. Listen intently. Ask questions. Ask them to repeat what they said if you need them to. Ask them to write new words down. Thank them and leave. Go to store two. Repeat the same process with a new clerk. Thank them a leave. Go to store three. Repeat the process. Read More. [...]
[...] way to use dumb/smart questions is in strategic shopping. I needed a new watch about a year into my time here in Turkey. I gave myself an extra half an hour [...]
[...] first time I shopped for a watch I took the opportunity to turn my shopping experience into a quality language learning experience. To do this, I prepared by building my background knowledge, my understanding of the words and [...]