Dragon's Den

Role-play game in which students compete to buy and sell genuine products from the show. Great for developing fluency.

This lesson has 4 main stages:

Students watch the start of a pitch from the tv show and come up with questions to decide if it's a good investment.
Students choose from a list of Dragon's Den products to sell.
Following a mingle activity, each student chooses which of their classmates products they would like to invest in.
Reveal which products made a profit - money awarded for successful buyers and sellers.

Introducing the topic: Listening

1. Show students the image form Dragon's Den. Does anyone know what this programme is?

What do contestants have to do? (give a brief explanation of the show).

possible vocabulary: make a pitch / entrepreneur / persuade / invest

2. Explain that students are going to see someone make their pitch. They need to listen for:

What does the contestant want from the dragons?

What will he give them in return?

Show Dragon's Den Video 0:00 - 0:40

3. Feedback on previous questions, then put students into small groups and ask them to write down 5 questions which the dragons should ask him before investing in the product. Then as a class, run through their ideas and board some of the ones which are relevent/ likely to come up.

Try to guide students towards objective information such as cost, retail price, sales, experience, etc. rather than more subjective "how good is the source?" type questions.

Show Dragon's Den Video 3:00 - 4.12

Feedback on which questions were answered, then in their groups students discuss whether or not the dragons should invest.

Show Levi Roots advert

The dragons did invest and Reggae Reggae sauce was a massive hit - now sold in most UK supermarkets.

Communicative Activity: Making a Pitch

1. Print and cut out the dragon's den products and give them to students, explain that these were all

real products pitched on Dragon’s Den.

If you have a larger class, it doesn't matter if more than one student has the same product.

Give students a minute to think about how they will sell their product.

What is it, why is it useful? Who will buy it?

What will you do with the money?

2. Students mingle, everyone stands with someone who has a different product. Student A has 45

seconds to pitch their idea to student B. After 45 seconds shout "change" and student B has 45

seconds to pitch their idea.

When everyone has pitched, shout "change partner" and repeat the process. This continues until

students have heard about all/most of the products on offer (the focus here is on fluency so avoid

interupting the flow to make corrections).

As students get comfortable with their pitch, shorten the time so that they have to speak progressively faster and faster:

Whilst older learners sometimes get frustrated when not given time to fully express themselves, I find teen students often enjoy the dynamism that comes with quick changes.

3. At the end of the mingle activity, make a table showing which product each student sold and complete

it by eliciting which product they would like to invest in (This cannot be their own!)

Award 50,000 euros to students for each person who invests in their product.

4.Use the attached powerpoint to show each product. Students vote on whether they think each product was a success before you reveal the answer.

Finally award $100,000 to everyone who invested in a successful product and calculate who made the most money overall ($50,000 for each sale plus $100,000 for buying a hit).

Here's my beautiful boardwork!