Retail / Fashion Syllabus
SAMPLE SYLLABUS – FASHION
WHO IS THIS SYLLABUS SUITABLE FOR?
This Fashion syllabus is suitable for second language learners working in the fashion industry, who want to improve their competence in the target language, using meaningful real-world contexts relevant to their professional working lives.
Actual course content and training format will be tailor-made after a process of consultation. The sample outline below gives an idea of what may be covered. The language levels are based on the Common European Framework.
SAMPLE COURSE OUTLINE
Level B2-C2 (Intermediate-Advanced Level)
1. Communicative/Thematic content may include:
• Customer service and selling for fashion retail
• The fashion retail market place
• Technology for fashion retail
• Business of fashion retail
• Visual merchandising
• Buying for fashion retail
• Professional development in retail
• Personal shopping and style
• Market research and branding for retail
• Marketing & PR for fashion retail
• Fashion history and culture
• Fashion design and communication
• Fashion trends and forecasting
2. Key functional content
• Communication: with project collaborators, fashion students, models, ad agency representatives etc
• Expressing ideas & opinions
• Making comparisons: fashion/retail trends in different countries
• Conversational strategies: turn-taking, interrupting, clarification and confirmation etc
• Register: formal vs. informal
• Networking and negotiation
• Negotiating
• Disagreement & Dissent
• Understanding and using nuance
• Assigning, accepting & denying blame
• Criticizing with tact
• Summarizing complex information
• Advising colleagues/ clients
3. Pronunciation
• Key sounds/phonemes
• Word and sentence stress & intonation
• Common Problems
4. Structural Content / Grammar
• Tenses: present & past (walk verb in its base form/ irregular verb walked)
• Perfect aspect: progressive & perfective (be + ing/ have + been past participle)
• Modal Verb structures: use of modals in discourse (I think I may…)
• Imperatives: the base form of the verb typically used to issue orders (stop!)
• Word order
• Building longer sentences
6. Non-thematic Vocabulary
• Complex prepositions: phrasal & mixed types (over & above)
• Linking words: (because, so, however, therefore, etc.)
• Word-building (prefix and suffix patterns)
• Common business related idioms (to pull one’s socks up)
6. Cultural content
• Everyday conventions: greetings, time-keeping, making phone calls, meals, etc
• Body language and gestures
• National traditions/customs & culture
• ‘Do’s & Taboos’
• Intercultural Communication
• Business Culture
• Social Life