You’ve probably heard of Luke Meddings and Lindsay Clandfield‘s valiant attempt (“52”) to embrace PARSNIP subjects (politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, isms and pork) and offer an alternative to the anodyne homogeneity that often envelops ELT. Well, I reckon they’ve missed one out: Tattoos! The taboo on the tattoo is, in my opinion, ridiculous. I’m sure at least one of your students has one, so why not let them reveal it (as long as it’s not in a rude place, of course!)? Surely, nobody’s going to be scarred for life by talking about a harmless bit of body modification! Without further ado, this lesson is my attempt to redress the balance. It is best used with upper intermediate and advanced students of English, and is probably not appropriate for kiddies.
Step One : Lead-in
The image above (click here for the big picture) features different types of tattoo: political, religious, girlfriend/boyfriend’s name, football team, rock group, flower design, motto/quote, “Mom”, Chinese characters. Ask your students to discuss how wise it would be to have each one of these designs tattooed on your body.
Note : If you are a fan of realia, you may want to consider getting a tattoo done yourself. You will only need to do this once, and will be able to carry it around with you easily for the rest of your teaching career. Very handy!
Step Two : Conversation Questions
Use your data-projector (if you have one) to screen the following conversations. Ask your students to discuss them in pairs or small groups.
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Optional Step Three : Split-reading
Here’s a couple of texts you might like to use for a split-reading activity!
1. English bet-loser’s Wales tattoo after rugby team’s Grand Slam victory
2. Georgia Mom Arrested for Allowing 10-Year-Old to Get Tattoo
Step Four : The Video
Use the photo in the top right corner of the conversation question sheet to introduce the following video. Ask your students to watch it once for gist, then show it again with a few comprehension questions e.g. How many stars did she want? | How many stars did she get? | What’s her story of what happened? | What’s the tattoo artist’s story? | How did her father react? | How have the tattooed stars affected her life? | What action has she taken and why? As a final stage, open-class them on whose story they believe.
Note : You may like to pre-teach the following vocabulary before showing the video: to be adamant, inked on her face, witness, outlining, she can’t even bear to …, ointment, I don’t dare to …, to sue, to undergo treatment (it might be stretching it a bit, but you may also want to explain the Madonna pop-culture reference at the end).
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Step Five : Roleplay
I must confess I’m not a great fan of roleplays, but this one worked really well … at least with my students. The roles are obvious: “The Girl with the 56-Star Tattoo”, the tattoo artist and the father/mother of the victim. Tell your students that they have been brought together to try and reach some kind of agreement on who is responsible for the unwanted tattoos, and what to do next. I normally suggest that the student in the role of parent should at first be disbelieving of both their daughter’s story and that of the tattoo artist. Then, towards the end of the roleplay, come down on one side or the other depending on who sounds the most plausible.
Endthought : You may like to slip in a bit of “causative have/get” language work during this lesson!
tefltecher 
bren brennan (@brenbrennan)
March 30, 2012
Nice one, Ian.
Did you hear a bit later after that 56 face-stars tattoo news broke that the girl was completely lying? She made up the ‘went to sleep’ story after her Dad went mental.
Roleplay Part II: Girl vs Dad – after he finds out the real truth :)
Roleplay Part III: Tattoo artist + mates – in the boozer after they find out that he’s been vindicated. Might have to pre-teach “I thought you were for the f*%king high-jump” / “Silly, little b*tch” etc. S who takes the tattoo artist role might find it easier to get into his vibe if they’ve got a mouthful of pencils! :)
Bekah Palmer
March 30, 2012
Nice. I’ve been looking for a way to address this topic in one of my German EFL conversation classes. Most of my students feel that tattoos are a very personal thing, and they stare at mine, but never ask or say anything. Thanks for the idea!
ij64
April 12, 2012
Thanks for the positive feedback, Bekah! Hope they don’t stare so much at your tattoo now! :-)
Naomi Epstein (@naomishema)
March 30, 2012
I”ll have to admit that I’m not brave enough to broach this topic with teenagers in a national school system. My class (since it is special ed) has a most unusual mix of religous and non religous students (and students from diiferent religions).
However, I applaud the rational of using this topic where relevant, particularly for adults. I had no idea it was a taboo subject!
Naomi
ij64
April 12, 2012
I think I’d agree with you, Naomi. Probably best not to broach the topic with under-agers … you might get a nasty visit from an irrate parent! :-)
I can do this
March 30, 2012
Ian,
Very timely indeed! I was just discussing tattoos with my Mexican university EFL students, who happen to be very conservative. They were all against tattoos until they discovered that tattoos can also help cosmetic problems (fading eyebrows in older women) and that having a tattoo did not hinder them from donating blood for life. That was a common fallacy.
Thanks for the great lesson. I can’t wait to adapt it!
Ellen in Mexico
ij64
April 12, 2012
Thanks for the comments, Ellen! Glad to hear you cleared up a few misunderstandings about tattoos … I might even get one myself! ;-)
Brad Patterson
April 1, 2012
Love it.
Tattoos were big taboos in china and such a great topic, so I jumped right in when I was there, and actually made a film on the subject JUST for my dear students. Check ‘er out!
http://ow.ly/a0kBF
Anyone else feel free to use it too. Cheers, Brad
Catherine Kennedy
April 9, 2012
Brad, your film is fascinating …. and rather ghastly (in the nicest possible way). Have you made any others?
brad5patterson
April 12, 2012
Hey Catherine. I was really happy with the result, and yes the “ghast” was very visible at certain points on my students’ faces! Fascinating conversations afterwards… and the fact that it was “real” and not on the TV brought it all home even more.
I made 4 or 5 videos like that, though only 2 are online. Here’s another surrounding my step-father and his violin business in the US: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAdTDSkR38k&list=UUdyp0oAi-SpOxNbuo9UPSKg&index=13&feature=plcp
Best from Paris, Brad
Catherine Kennedy
April 13, 2012
Oh Brad, your stepdad is a STAR. I absolutely must feature your film on the old blog… keep us posted on future releases!
ij64
April 13, 2012
Hi Brad, it’s me again (he says sheepishly)! … Just wanted to say thanks again and to congratulate you on the brilliant video. When I see you in the flesh you’re gonna have to give me the run-down on how you do the video editing. I’ve got a pretty naff flipcam, which doesn’t really allow me to do anything classy. Would love to know what progs/software you use!
:-) Ian
Catherine Kennedy
April 9, 2012
A totally brilliant lesson plan – lots of unexpected twists to maintain student involvement.
ij64
April 13, 2012
Thanks, Catherine! That’s very nice of you! :-)
Ian
Steve Muir
April 16, 2012
I went into my B2.1 class to find one of the students showing her recently acquired tattoo to the rest of the group. I couldn’t have hoped for a more perfect start to the lesson! I asked the students to have the conversation again, but in English, and then we looked at vocabulary of getting and looking after a tattoo. Another couple of students showed and / or described their tattoos, which led to more questioning and using the vocabulary we’d just seen, and we finished off that stage with some of the conversation questions that hadn’t already come up.
We carried on with the lesson pretty much as you describe; the listening was quite challenging, but collectively the students were able to answer all the questions, and the role play worked really well.
All in all, a varied, coherent, relevant and demanding lesson which the students (and I) thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks, Ian!
ij64
April 20, 2012
Thanks, Steve! Great to hear it went so well, … and a great tale from the classroom too! As you tweeted, truly serendipitous! You’ll be glad to hear I’m working on a lesson about money at the moment, let’s see if the little darlings whip out the cash! :-)
Sandy Millin
July 1, 2013
Thanks a lot for this lesson Ian. My students really enjoyed it, particularly the roleplay at the end. They even added sound effects of a tattoo needle courtesy of youtube!
Sandy