Language Skills: reading comprehension, listening/viewing comprehension, oral proficiency, dictation/spelling and writing short passages
Grammar reviewed: Present Simple, Past Simple and Passive
Click here to go to the FINAL PROGRAM FOR SPORTS UNIT
Click here to go to the MATERIAL FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS
Lesson
PlanIntroduction - Pair reading:Olympic Cloze <=Click to view online. The Olympic Flame is given in two versions to the class as a cloze. Print out the cloze and then have pairs of students fill in the missing words in their version. Then they check their answers with the other version of the reading. (written by David Snipper and edited by Gail Shuster-Bouskila)
CLOZE -- Dictation and or online activity:Olympic Facts (written by David Snipper and edited by Gail Shuster-Bouskila) The students can practice this text as a dictation or in the computer program called HOT POTATOES - computer text reconstruction program. The HOT POTATOES version can be accessed for immediate use in the computer lab. (The teacher or a good student can help weaker students by reading the text aloud in the computer room.)
Mixer exercise: Summer Olympics The students are given a copy of the "Mixer exercise" worksheet to fill in. Each pair of students is also given a slip of paper with ONE Summer Olympic sport description on it. They are to read for specific information and fill in the worksheet about the sport they have. Then they circulate and find information about 2 other sports by asking other students questions.
Crossword puzzle: Click here to see a sample CROSSWORD PUZZLE The students practice the vocabulary they learned in the Mixer exercise with an online crossword puzzle. (To make a puzzle of your own online, without a website, go to www.puzzlemaker.com -- students love to do this too!) This puzzle was made with HOT POTATOES!
Song: The song We are the Champions by Queen is played
for the students and the vocabulary is taught. Since they will be asked
to create a cheer when representing their country, they can take some of
their ideas from the song! (It can be played or sung during the
Olympic Sports Day at the end of the unit.) Try to find it on the web,
but since it is copyrighted, contact me and I will send you the words if
you can't find them.
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"Olympic" Sports Day: The final activity of this unit is to then combine the information learned with a day of sports supervised by the sports teachers, English teachers and the other teachers. Each class represents a different English speaking country - USA, Canada, England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa (if needed use Zimbabwe, Jamaca, Bahamas, India or Singapore). They dress in the colors of the country. They make flags and English signs with the name of the country and its emblem. They create cheers, chants or songs in English to be used for "team spirit". The preparation may take about a week. (This can also become a "Maccabia" or "Hapoel" Sports day, but Olympics is more international.)
The classes rotate between the various sports events, for example:
NOTE: Each sports activity should have two teachers as judges to be fair when awarding points. The Team Spirit station should be judged by the English teachers since the classes will hand in their Official Olympic Identity Cards, sing the songs or chant the cheers they have prepared for points.
MATERIAL
FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS
(all written by David Snipper and edited by Gail Shuster-Bouskila):
Strip Story : Strip Story <=Click to view online. The article is called Some Interesting Facts about the Olympic Games. Print it out both the entire article for a reading and the strips. Copy the strips it 3 or 4 times. Finally cut up into strips to give to groups of students. Each student in the group gets one sentence. The students read their strips and try to reconstruct the story together. They check their answers by reading the whole text.
Sports and Anti-Semitism: I PROTEST--The Maccabi Games, The Berlin Olympics and the Jewish Austrian Swimmer This includes a cloze and a strip story activity.
The Maccabi Games:
THE IDEA WAS GOOD BUT THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE by David Snipper
The Olympic Games - Anti-Semitism, Racism and Terrorism
3 READINGS FOR A JIGSAW ACTIVITY:
Jigsaw instructions and discussion questions
1. The Olympics and Anti-Semitism
2. The Olympics and Racism
3. The Olympics and Terrorism
We suggest that you search the Sports
site on the Internet for CURRENT articles and information!
FOX SPORTS
CNN SPORTS
ESPN SPORTS
ABC SPORTS
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