| Today's Interactive GOOGLE DOODLE on the Olympics: Hurdles |
With the
world’s eyes still on London, why not take advantage of so much data and
resources available and use them for our classes?
These
2012 Olympics will be one of the biggest and best sporting events. Having this
in mind and the fact that sport is one of the topics in our curricula, have a
look, for example, at stuff provided by the British Council:
London
2012, the facts and figures:
To practise and revisit vocab, check
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/grammar-vocabulary/vocabulary-exercises/sporting-events and
http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/grammar-vocabulary/vocabulary-exercises/olympic-sports - english for the games / Olympic sports –
wordsearches + hangman
Whatever sports you are following at the Olympics,
don't forget all the great worksheets you can download at their English for the
Games page. Check them all out here:
The Get Set London 2012 is the official site for educators and it also
contains a set of resources for different age
groups at http://getset.london2012.com/en/resources.
In spite of the Portuguese medal drought, let’s be
optimistic and believe that in a near future our Portuguese athletes will get
more governmental support and bring home some medals. To practise the future
tense or simply for the fun of using English, go to http://london2012.sochi2014.com/en/ and ask sts to write a
message on a virtual placard held by virtual fans in a virtual Olympic stadium.
There is no need for registration and then they can share the link with friends
on Facebook, Twitter or VK (another social network) and with us, teachers, even as an advertisement.
Here, the official site for the London Olympics, one
can even follow the medals and their distribution country by country, which can become a nice exercise in Geography asking sts to locate those countries in the
map (Google already presents us the maps here) and then doing some research or even practise adjective degrees.
For some History on the Olympic Games and its
evolution, have a look at The Olympic Museum at http://assets.olympic.org/virtualexhibitions/expo-heroes-en.html
As a stepping stone for a much more serious debate, why not read ASTERIX AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES (here you can read / download the ebook) whose story satirizes performance enhancing drug usage in sports? Should they be accepted in sports? Pros / Cons, consequences, doping in sport... are only some examples for dividing the class into two groups and leading a class debate.
Any suggestions?
