London Olympics 2012 | Teaching English | British Council

Theme: Olympic games
Lexical area: Sport

Instructions for language assistants in Italics

Classroom materials

Introduction
Task 1 is a simple brainstorm of sports vocabulary, Task 2 is a quiz about the Olympic Games and Task 3 asks students to create their own mini quiz about the Games. Task 4 is a reading activity from Trend UK for higher levels. Task 5 and Task 6 are imaginative tasks for lower levels. Task 5 asks students to think about new events to be included in future Olympic Games and Task 6 to prepare a bid for their town or city to host a future Games.

1. Sports A-Z
Put the students into groups of 3 or 4 and give each group one copy of the A-Z sheet in task 1. Tell students they have five minutes to think of as many sports as they can, one beginning with each letter of the alphabet. For example Athletics, Basketball, Canoeing, Diving etc. At the end of the time limit, check the answers and see which group has the most.

Task 1 Sports A-Z
How many sports do you know in English? Work in groups to think of one for each letter of the alphabet.

Sports A-Z

A –
B –
C –
D –
E –
F –
G –
etc.

2. Olympic quiz
Ask students to work in small groups to complete the quiz, or if you prefer work as a whole class, voting on the correct answers. Lower level students may have to revise ‘wh’ question words (when, why, where, what, which)and how to say the years (1824 etc) before starting. The quiz can be used as a starting point for task three, where students write their own Olympic quiz.

Answers:

1. a
2. c
3. b
4. b
5. a
6. They rings represent the five continents: Africa, America, Asia, Australia and Europe.
7. c
8. a
9. They were cancelled because of the World Wars.
10. b

Task 2 Olympic quiz
Test your knowledge of the Olympic Games by doing this quiz. Work in small groups.

Olympic Quiz

1) When were the first ancient Olympic Games held?

a) 776 BC
b) 223 BC
c) 112 AD

2) Which Greek God was honoured by the ancient Olympic Games?

a) Heracules
b) Perseus
c) Zeus

3) In which year was the very first modern Olympic Games held?

a) 1824
b) 1896
c) 1906

4) Where was the first modern Olympic Games held?

a) London
b) Athens
c) Rome

5) When was the Olympic flag with the five rings introduced?

a) 1920
b) 1916
c) 1924

6) What do the five rings represent?

7) When were the Olympic Games first televised?

a) 1956
b) 1946
c) 1936

8) Where are the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee?

a) Switzerland
b) UK
c) Greece

9) Why were the Olympic Games cancelled in 1916, 1940 and 1944?

10) Where are the 2008 Olympic games going to be held?

a) Shanghai
b) Beijing
c) Hong Kong

Check your answers with your teacher.

3. Write your own Olympic quiz
Use task two to give students some ideas of the type of questions to put in their quiz. Encourage them to localise the information and write questions about athletes from their own country. If you have access to the internet they could use it to research their questions. If not students should see what they can remember from the last few Olympic Games they can remember. Who won what? How many medals did their country win? Etc.

Task 3 Write your own Olympic quiz
Now you are going to write your own Olympic quiz. Work in groups and write your 5 questions her. You must be sure you know all the answers!

Olympic quiz

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Now test your class mates with your quiz.

4. Reading task: London’s run to victory.
This is a reading task for higher levels. Depending on the level of your students they may need some pre-teaching of the harder vocabulary. Students could work in pairs or small groups.

Answers:

1. Paris, Madrid, New York and Moscow.
2. Paris
3. David Beckham, Denise Lewis, Lord Sebastian Coe, the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London.
4. Public transport will improve, better and more sports facilities will be built. (Students can add their own ideas here)

Task 4 Reading task: London’s run to victory.
Read the text and answer the following questions.

1) Which cities did London beat in the competition to host the Games?

2) Which city came second in the competition?

3) Which famous people helped in London’s bid for the Games?

4) How do you think London will change because of having the Olympic Games there in 2012?

London’s run to victory

London has beaten Paris and three other cities in the race to host the Olympic Games in 2012.

Five rings, five cities
London is to host the Olympic Games in 2012 following the International Olympic Committee’s announcement in Singapore on 6 July. London was one of five cities vying to host the Games. The others were Paris, Madrid, New York and Moscow. London beat Paris 54-50 in the nail biting final vote. The news has been greeted with delight both in London and by the bidding team in Singapore, which included England football captain David Beckham and gold medal-winning athlete Denise Lewis.

Why did London win?
The city’s bid was fronted by former athlete Lord Sebastian Coe, who is well known and highly respected within world sport. The bid had strong support from the Mayor of London and the Government, and the Prime Minister’s personal lobbying may have proved decisive. They fought a high-profile publicity campaign. But the mechanics of the bid itself and the plans to regenerate areas of derelict land in Stratford, East London also played a part. Wimbledon and Wembley are other famous venues likely to be used for some of the 26 sports. Public transport will be improved by 2012 and it is hoped that 80% of spectators will travel to the events by train.

What happens next?
Lord Coe said: ‘It is the most fantastic opportunity to do everything we've ever dreamed of in British sport. We have a chance over seven years and way beyond that to change the face of British sport.’ He has agreed to chair the organising committee and Tessa Jowell MP has been appointed as Minister in charge of the London Olympics. The last word goes to London Mayor Ken Livingstone: ‘We'll give the world the best Games they've ever seen.’

This text originally appeared in the Trend Uk website

5. Olympic event of the future
This is a simple task for lower levels. Tell your students that the host country of the Games can choose a new event to include in the Olympics. Ask your students which event they would like to see in the Games. Encourage them to think into the future and use their imaginations. Put students into pairs to complete the sentence and then ask pairs to share their ideas with the group and you could hold a class vote to see which events are the most popular.

Task 5 Olympic event of the future
Which event would you like to see included in the Olympic Games of the future? Skateboarding? Rollerblading? Computer games?

I think that _________________ should be included in the Olympic Games because ….

6. Olympic Bid 2016
Tell the students that they are going to prepare a bid for their own city to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Each group is a committee and should think about what they need to do. If you are in one of the cities that lost against London the students will probably be well informed about what their city’s bid contained and they can use this information to help them prepare their own bid. Depending on how much time you have for this task you could really go to town with it and get the different groups to give mini presentations of their ideas showing their projects.

Task 6 Olympic Bid 2016
Your town or city wants to host the Olympic Games in 2016. You are responsible for planning the proposal. You have a lot of work to do. Discuss the following questions with your group and then present your ideas to the class.

What new sports facilities does your city need?
Where will you build the new facilities?
Where will the participants sleep?
How many volunteers will you need to help during the Games?
How will your city change if you win the bid?
Design a logo for your city to use for your campaign.

Internet links

This site has a fantastic collection of online and printable materials relating to the Olympics:
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/

This site has a text and interactive online activity on the history of the Olympics. Good to set for homework:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-magazine

This is the main BBC site with lots of information and links on the Olympics 2012:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olympics_2012/default.stm

This is the official site of the London bid:
http://www.london2012.org/en

The official IOC site of the Olympic movement:
http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp

By Jo Budden

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