Sporting traditions | Teaching English | British Council

Theme: Sporting traditions in the UK, sports linked to regional customs.

Lexical area: Sports, rules.
Cross curricular links: Sports Education, History, Social Science.

Instructions for language assistants in italics

Classroom materials

Introduction
This lesson consists of three short descriptions of sporting traditions in the UK. The texts explore the types of sport and the attitudes of people playing unusual games or entering unusual tournaments. Task 7 is better suited to higher levels but one of the role play situations could be adapted to lower level classes with careful dialogue building and guided prompts on the board.

For lower levels use the visuals, if necessary, to expand sporting vocabulary and to practice questions about the rules of each game. Bring pictures of famous sporting figures from the UK and ask students to bring their own pictures of favourite sports people. You could use these as the basis for pair work questions or controlled writing practice. An additional language activity for numbers might include a listening activity based on this week's Premiership football results.
For higher levels use visuals of famous sporting figures as the basis of a class quiz. They have to make the questions to guess the person. You could also include an additional language activity. Give students a list of sporting headlines from the press. Can they guess which sport is being talked about? Look at the vocabulary used in the headlines. You can include extra listening with a section from the News and a guided note taking task to help them identify the sport being described and maybe the result of the game.

1. Types of sport

Put students in pairs or groups to do the initial brainstorming and then hold a class feedback on sports.

Use any visuals you have to teach new vocabulary or elicit sports like cricket, fox hunting or snow boarding.
Then students can work in pairs to discuss the sports using the questions.
Ask around the class to find out which sports are popular in the class, region or host country.

Task 1 Types of sport

Write as many sports as you can under these headings

Extreme sports	Traditional sports	Blood sports

Have you ever tried one of these sports?
Which is your favourite?
Do you dislike any of them?
Are any of them popular in your country?

2. Sports challenge

Give pairs of students all the clues and do the first one with the whole class. You could give a separate clue to pairs or groups of students and ask them to guess the sport. Then hold a whole class quiz as each student reads out the clue they have to challenge the whole class. This makes it more dynamic. Ask students to write one more clue in pairs, if appropriate. They do not have to be British traditions, just: Which sport am I describing?

Task 2 Sports challenge

Many sports played today have their origins in the UK.

Read the clues and guess the sport

CLUES

This game was started in Scotland and the rules were decided by a Scottish club set up in 1877. Now there are over 2,000 places where you can play this sport in the UK. The number of players can vary. You have to hit a small ball into a hole.(Golf)

The Association which decides the rules of this game was founded in 1863. there are eleven players on each team and a game lasts ninety minutes. The team has to try and get their ball in to the net of the opposing team to score a goal. The team with the most goals wins.(Association Football or Soccer)

This game has been played since the 1500s and is known as the English National Game. Many countries that were once part of the British Empire still play this game from India to Australia. Two teams dressed in white use a batsman who must hit a very small, very hard ball. The opposing team throws the ball and must try to hit a wicket behind the batsman. (Cricket)

This game originated in an English Public school of the same name. The ball used in this game is not round in shape. There are 15 players on each side. The Welsh are very keen players of this sport. New Zealand, Australia and South Africa have good teams. (Rugby - this clue describes Rugby Union but the variation of Rugby league has 13 players a side)

You can play this on a grass or on a hard court. One of the most famous competitions is held every year at Wimbledon in London. The first Championship was played at Wimbledon in 1877 but it is an English sport that has been played in various forms for centuries. The players use a racket to hit a small ball over a net and the opposing player must hit the ball back with his racket. (Tennis)

How many did you guess?
Make a clue to challenge your class.

3. Sporting traditions in the UK

For this activity, you can give all the texts to each student or put students in groups of 3 and give each student a different text. If you use a split reading approach ask students to tell each other about the sporting tradition in their text and then ask them to work through the questions up until the final 3 questions.

You can check understanding by asking the class to tell you or write out the basic rules for each sport.
Run through the answers to the reading before you ask them to discuss the last three questions in pairs.
Hold a class vote on the answers. Ask if they have any silly sports or unusual traditions locally. Ask if they have ever tried a dangerous sport.

Task 3 Sporting Traditions in the UK

Read these descriptions of sporting customs in the UK. Some of the customs or rules might seem strange but they have been practised for hundreds of years.

Which sport is practised throughout the UK? (Street football)
Which sport is not usually played by men? (Pancake racing)
Which sport has an incredible number of players? (Ashbourne football)
Which sport is the most dangerous? (Ashbourne football)
Which sport requires the most physical strength? (Tossing the caber)
Which sports involve throwing something? (Pancake races and tossing the caber)

Sporting traditions in the UK

Forty-one days before Easter Sunday is a special day for Christians. All over England people used to celebrate the start of this period before Easter known as Lent by using up all their milk, flour and eggs. They made pancakes with the ingredients and then held pancake races in the streets. Each town has its own rules for the pancake races. The oldest and most famous is held in Olney in Buckinghamshire. The players must be women over the age of 16 and they wear a hat and an apron. They must run for nearly 400 metres with a frying pan with a pancake in it. They must throw the pancake in the air (toss it) at least 3 times during the race. The first woman to the finish line with a pancake in her pan is the winner. It is a great skill to toss a pancake and run at the same time.

The Highland Games is a Championship which began in the middle of the 19th century in the Scottish Highlands. Games are traditionally held in September. One of the most popular sports is 'tossing the caber'. Tossing means throwing. Players have to throw a long and extremely heavy wooden pole, like a tree trunk. The average caber weighs 68 kilos and is usually about 6 metres long. The heaviest caber in the history of caber tossing weighed an incredible 127 kilos. The player who throws his wooden caber the furthest is not necessarily the winner. The style of throwing is more important than the distance. Players are usually very big and strong!

St John's Ambulance and first aid volunteers are always present at the two day football match held in Ashbourne in the Midlands every Spring. The Ashbourne street football game is one of many street football matches played out all over the UK. The town is divided into two teams, depending on where you live. There can be hundreds of players in each team and the two goal posts are nearly five kilometres apart. The ball is not kicked but 'hugged' close to the chest. The shopkeepers in the centre of town have to cover their windows with wooden boards to stop the crowds of players smashing in to the glass. All locals, young and old, enjoy this very lively and sometimes violent game. The match ends with a few broken arms or injuries but it is all so much fun say the locals. They have been playing this game every year for more than two centuries. It is a bit difficult to get the ball from one end of town to the other and this year they played until 10 in the evening. Unfortunately, nobody was able to score a goal.

Which sport do you think is the silliest?
Which do you think is the most difficult?
Which sport would you like to try?

4. Local Customs

This task can be done in pairs or small groups. If you think your students may not be very imaginative,e suggest customs for them to describe. Ask teaching colleagues and locals to give you suggestions before this lesson and then ask students about one which interests you.

The discussion on disappearing customs can be expanded with higher levels. Ask students to work in pairs to decide on the types of customs which might be disappearing and then to give as many reasons why the customs are dying out.
Give them some examples to get them started: young people are not as interested in local history and stories because they know more bout the outside world from TV and the Internet.
The adoption of customs from other countries will underline the cross fertilisation of cultures that has been happening for centuries. Give an example of the UK which has developed the use of Christmas trees from Germany and a more commercialised approach to Halloween from the influence of the American media. This concept of cultural borrowings will be expanded in Task 6 to include linguistic borrowing.

Task 4 Local customs

Take an important custom, sporting event or competition in your town or region. Describe its origins, the rules and the traditions involved.

Do you enjoy celebrating local customs?
Are any customs starting to disappear?
Have you 'adopted' any sports or customs from other countries? Which?

5. Are you a good sport?

Before you look at this task you can make it more challenging for higher levels. Ask them in groups to brainstorm words or phrases that they might associate with the term 'a good sport' or 'sportsmanship'. Note that you can also explain that the term 'gamesmanship' means the opposite of being a good sport as it describes someone who uses lots of cunning and rule breaking to win. Ask what they think of gamesmanship.

Lower levels will need more guidance in making questions so build them on the board by eliciting examples from the class. Example questions could be: 'Have you ever changed the rules during a game to help you win?' 'Have you ever had a fight about losing a game or match?' 'Do you like winning games?'
You can choose to give them a questionnaire that you make and dictate the questions as a listening task before they ask each other.

Task 5 Are you a good sport?

A person is said to be a good sport in the UK if they:

Follow the rules of the game and never cheat
Do not change the rules to suit themselves
Don't mind losing and don't make a fuss if they lose
Help other players in difficulty
Have fun playing the game

Make questions to find out if people in your class are good sports.
Example question: 'Have you ever shouted or cried when you lost a game?'

6. Sporting terms and phrases

Adapt this task to suit your students. Give them this task as an open ended brainstorm in groups or make it more guided.

To guide students give them sentences from the Media in their country which you can collect over a period of days. They can then circle any English sporting words.
They could also collect examples themselves after this lesson.
Give examples of borrowings in the UK from your host country's language and/or other languages.

Task 6 Sporting terms and phrases

Think of any English sporting words or terms that you use in your country
Compare words
Why do you think we borrow words from other languages?

7. Sporting improvisations/role plays

Give students a choice of topics if appropriate and ask them to work in small groups or pairs. Otherwise you choose one topic to guide the class.

The commentary could be a guided activity using a bit of sporting footage on video with the sound off.
The fox hunting and blood sports topic can be organised as a class debate.
Give two sides of the class different sides of the argument to mill over and try to give them a leaflet or official literature covering the debate.

Task 7 Sporting improvisations/role plays

Improvisation 1

You are playing cards with friends and suspect that one of the players is cheating. Challenge this player and see how they explain their behaviour

Improvisation 2

You want to try an extreme sport but your parents are against this idea. Try to convince your Dad that it will be a positive experience

Improvisation 3

Pick your favourite sport or sporting moment. Imagine you are a commentator on the radio. Tell us what is happening and make it sound exciting.

Improvisation 4

Speak for one minute on blood sports like shooting animals and birds or fox hunting. You can be for or against this type of sport. Give your opinion.

Internet links

This very accessible guide to extreme sport is suitable for low levels.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/sport/extreme_sports/

This is the site of the department for culture, media and sport and offers a gateway to all sporting initiatives and events in the UK. There are also sections on school sport. May 2004 sees the launch of the 'Summer of Sport' and there are some useful facts and statistics.
www.culture.gov.uk/sport/default.htm

This site is good for visuals and details of the sporting calendar.
www.uksport.gov.uk/

This has good visuals and the latest headlines to use in language activities.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport

This site covers other dangerous sports and unusual customs like cheese rolling. There is some fun advice on how to survive street football.
www.doctordanger.com/other/OtherEventMidFootball1.htm

This gives a good lesson on sports lingo as part of the learning English through sport on the World service site.
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/youmeus/lingo/lingo_sport.sht...

Essential UK links

A Generation of couch potatoes looks at the role of sport in the health and fitness levels of young Britons.
Show racism the red card looks at the racism suffered by British sporting stars and the ways that racism can be challenged in sport.
Football Culture looks at attitudes towards football in the UK and the issues in the News
A Multicultural society follows up the idea of cultural borrowings and diversity in the UK.
Diwali- My favourite festival looks at a Hindu festival celebrated by the UK's Asian community and also extends the work on customs and traditions.
April Fool's Day looks at one custom which involves people being very silly!
Innovation nation looks at the contribution that the UK has made to inventions.
Famous Britons looks at historical figures and celebrities who are role models for the nation. There is a text on David Beckham and a task on sports stars as role models.

By Clare Lavery

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