Sell Me This
A product with a twist. A persona. A scenario. Students pitch it in 60 seconds — and the class decides if they buy it.
Open App →One (or a Small Group) at the Front
- 1One student, or a small group, pitches from the front of the class — the screen behind them shows their product card, not the audience.
- 2The class votes from their own phones, not by show of hands: a QR code on the teacher's screen links to a join page where each student privately casts a Buy / Invest / Pass vote, and the tally updates live as votes come in.
- 3For Duel mode, two pitchers each take a turn at the front before voting opens; for Shark Tank mode, seat 3–4 students panel-style facing the pitcher to ask questions, while the rest of the class still votes from their phones.
- 4Twist Intensity controls how serious the product's built-in flaw is, not how unusual the product looks — that's Object Type (Real, Fantastic, or Mixed). Keep the two settings straight when briefing pitchers.
The Teaching Logic Behind Sell Me This
Sell Me This generates a portfolio of 1 to 5 products tailored to a CEFR level. Each product has a name, a tagline, a twist (an unexpected or ironic flaw), a target persona (who would buy this?), a usage scenario (when/where is it used?), 4 to 6 pitch starters, and 4 to 6 core features. Object Type (Real, Fantastic, or Mixed) controls how unusual the product itself is; Twist Intensity (Light, Medium, Strong) separately controls how serious that flaw is — Light is a minor inconvenience, Strong is an almost deal-breaking drawback that tests advanced persuasion.
Five modes change the interaction format without changing the generated content. Classic mode: one student pitches to the class. Duel mode: two students pitch competing products and the class votes on the more convincing pitch. Reverse mode: students must argue AGAINST a product, identifying its flaws. Shark Tank mode: one student pitches to a panel who asks follow-up questions. Exploded Sketch mode: students describe what the product does without naming it, and the class guesses — combining Sell Me This with the circumlocution mechanic of Definition Wizards.
Object type can be set to Real (actual product categories), Fantastic (invented or impossible products), or Mixed. Real mode is most useful for business English or exam preparation contexts. Fantastic mode produces the most creative and humorous spoken output. Mixed mode gives the teacher one real and one fantastic product in each portfolio generation.
Why It Works
Pitch format replicates authentic professional speaking demands
Gee (2003) argues that authentic learning occurs when students adopt a social role with genuine communicative purpose. The sales pitch is one of the most universally recognised professional speaking roles — students who perform a convincing pitch practise exactly the lexical, structural, and pragmatic features of real professional English: opening hook, benefit framing, objection handling, and call to action.
Unusual products force creative lexical deployment
Cook (2000) identifies ludic language use — language play, creativity, and invention — as an undervalued dimension of L2 acquisition. The twist mechanic in Sell Me This creates the condition for productive language play: students must describe a product that does not fit any ready-made script, which forces them to recombine vocabulary in novel collocations that would never emerge from conventional speaking tasks.
Pitching to a class develops genuine audience-directed speech
Halliday (1978) identifies tenor — the relationship between speaker and audience — as a key dimension of register. A sales pitch addressed to a specific target persona (a 'harassed parent', a 'competitive athlete') requires the speaker to model the audience in real time — to use vocabulary, register, and examples appropriate to that persona. This audience-modelling skill is one of the highest-level pragmatic competences in L2 production.
Step-by-Step in Class
Generate the portfolio and choose a mode
Select a CEFR level, an object type (Real/Fantastic/Mixed), a twist intensity, a game mode, and how many products to generate (1 to 5). Assign each pitcher a product before the preparation phase begins — do not let students choose, as the assigned constraint produces more creative language.
Preparation phase — 3 minutes
Each pitcher reads their product card: name, tagline, twist, persona, scenario, pitch starters, and core features. They plan a 60-second pitch. The pitch starters are sentence beginnings — students must complete them with their own language. They should not read the card; they should use it as a planning scaffold and then speak freely.
The pitch — 60 to 90 seconds
The pitcher delivers their pitch to the class. In Classic mode, the class listens and votes at the end. In Duel mode, both pitches run back-to-back, then the class votes. In Shark Tank mode, the class (in panel role) may ask up to 3 questions after the pitch. The pitcher must handle all questions.
Class vote and debrief
Project the QR code so students can join on their own phones and cast a private Buy / Invest / Pass vote — the live tally updates as votes come in. After voting closes, ask: 'What made this pitch work?' or 'What objection would you have raised as a Shark?' The debrief converts the performance into explicit vocabulary and structure awareness.
How to Set It Up for Different Levels
Generates familiar real-world products with a Light twist (a minor, manageable flaw). Pitch starters use simple persuasion frames: 'Imagine...', 'This product will help you...', 'The best thing about this is...'. Vocabulary is high-frequency with no technical language.
B1 learners feel most confident with familiar products — they have real opinions about them. Light twist adds one unexpected feature that forces novel language without overwhelming the production capacity needed for a public performance.
Generates fantastic products with a Medium twist (a notable drawback requiring concessive language). Students pitch competing products and the class votes live from their phones. Pitch starters include comparative frames: 'Unlike other products on the market...', 'What sets this apart is...'. Vocabulary targets B2 marketing collocations.
Duel mode creates genuine competitive motivation — one pitch will be voted more convincing. The fantastic product context removes the factual crutch: students cannot rely on real knowledge, they must invent benefits and argue for them, which produces exactly the speculative and creative language that B2 oral production practice requires.
Generates a mix of real and fantastic products with a Strong twist (a major, almost deal-breaking flaw). Pitch starters include formal business register: 'The market for this product is estimated at...', 'Our key differentiator is...'. Post-pitch Shark questions test spontaneous elaboration and objection handling.
Shark Tank mode replicates the most demanding real-world presentation scenario: an expert panel with adversarial questions. C1 learners who handle prepared pitches well often underperform under unscripted questioning. The panel format specifically targets this gap — preparing students for the spontaneous formal language use that C1 professional contexts demand.
Ways to Extend the Game
Reverse Pitch Challenge
After a Classic pitch, the pitcher must immediately deliver a 30-second reverse pitch — the worst possible arguments for why you should NOT buy this product. Reverse argumentation requires the same vocabulary from the opposite semantic direction, which develops lexical flexibility.
Exploded Sketch Round
The pitcher describes every component and function of the product without using its name or tagline. The class guesses the product from the description. This mode combines Sell Me This with circumlocution and vocabulary precision — students must describe function without label.
Write the Ad
After the pitch, students write a 25-word print advertisement for the same product using at least 2 of the pitch starters in their written version. The transition from spoken pitch to written ad teaches register adjustment: the same persuasive content in a more compressed, formal, and punctuated form.
Persona Challenge
The pitcher delivers the same pitch twice: once to the generated target persona and once to a different audience (e.g. 'children' when the persona was 'executives'). The class discusses how the language, vocabulary, and pitch structure changed between audiences.
Pair It With
Act it Out
Act it Out develops the same performance confidence as Sell Me This but in a dialogic format — after students have practised solo monologue pitching, Act it Out extends performance skills to improvised two-person scenarios.
Persuasion Arena
Persuasion Arena applies the competitive persuasion skills developed in Sell Me This in a trivia-debate format — students who have practised audience-directed pitching bring stronger argument construction to the Persuasion Arena confidence-betting rounds.
Reaction Reactor
Reaction Reactor provides the specific idiomatic expressions for handling audience reactions during a pitch — scepticism, enthusiasm, disbelief — the exact pragmatic responses that Sell Me This Shark Tank mode generates from the panel.