Category: sport

Yesterday as part of Health Week I shared this video with Y5 who were focusing on ‘exercise for health.’  Although Sergio Ramos’ singing caused great amusement, they loved it and all enthusiastically joined in with the chorus.

España ¡ey! ¡ey!   Cantamos ¡Gol! ¡Gol!

España ¡ey! ¡ey!   La Roja baila.

https://youtu.be/SZWIrzNyTgI

There’s also a version without the words and with ‘promotional footage’ for Euro16 , a chipmunk version, a Videostar version with actions. And I love the Playmobil version!

There’s also this song  Himno Selección Española Eurocopa 2016 which is billed as a tribute to the team.

I hope we’ll still all singing at about 9.45 this evening…

¡Viva la Roja!

Languages MiniOlympics packs – Bringing together the two threads of KS2 teaching and languages and the International Dimension   –   presented by Michaela Howard and Jo Darley

Jo and Michaela – having marvellously overcome technical issues- presented their ideas for how to use the Olympics as the inspiration for language learning activities that  are clearly linked to the KS2 Framework and specifically for the class teacher to deliver.

1. GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Take 6 athletes from around the world –

• look at their photographs
• looking at names and have a go at pronouncing the names,
• are they male or female? which country?
• present countries in original language – can you decide which country it is?
• look at different script
• pause for thought – what was hard / easy?
• greetings in their own language – which is which?
• flags of countries – research?
• sports on each day – who will be doing which sport? by process of deduction, decide!
• customs and cultures to finish – which fact belongs with which athlete?

2. SPORTS

• short activities that fit well into the school day
• adapt the sports chart (containing all the sports in 5 languages) to individual needs – use one column or all five columns but just six sports to group etc
• perhaps cut up into chunks to match up, compare languages, describe their decisoon making
• then look for the symbols for sports
• tailor it to the interests of your learners
• make links – ask partner schools to tell you about their sports

3. DESIGN AN OLYMPIC EVENT

Michaela suggested challenging pupils to come up with their own Olympic event by posing the following questions –

• what would YOUR Olympic event be?
• who is it for?
• team vs individual
• equipment?
• feelings?
• why should it be in the games?
• enjoyable?
• where will it be held?
• training?
• values?
• judging?
• skills?
• children be involved?

*excellent activity with a partner school*

*engaging learning – collaborating*

4.MASCOTS

http://www.mapsoftheworld.com/olympic-trivia/olympic-mascot.html

Design a mascot with 2 places to look for inspiration – info on Beijing mascots and how they were conceived, what they represent etc and from London Olympic mascots – very visual labelled diagrams. (Didn’t manage to note the URL but found the picture!)

A mascot for YOUR area – black cabs are specific to London perhaps – what would eg Lincoln have?

(there’s a mascot maker on the 2012 site!)

5.PUBLICITY

How might you use the job of promoting the Olympic games as a task?

In Y3 with the objective “to copy words” you might

• design a ticket
• label a map of the event
• simple bilingual dictionary to find your favourite sport
• make a welcome flag

In  y4 with the objective “to write some simple words and phrases using model and some from memory” you might make

• programme cover
• logo and label it
• whole class poster advertising all sports
• simple menu for food stand (healthy lunchbox)

In y5 with the objective “to write words, phrases and short sentences using references” you might design a cartoon strip

In y6 with the objective ” to write sentences on a range of topics” you might

• write a paragraph to describe how you feel about games
• discuss where the games should be in 2020 – make your case
• produce tourist information for another country

6. ON YOUR MARKS

Going back to the 6 athletes and using these two sites, find out the distance the athletes have to travel to London (assuming they live in the capital city of their country!) How long will it take to travel? what time is it in their city when it’s  x o’clock in London?

http://www.silkysteps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1118

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html

7. NATIONAL ANTHEMS

There are 216 countries competing. Each one has a national anthem. What a lot of music to exploit!

• What’s ours?
• Listen to the national anthems – which country is it? You might need to give some clues too!
• Look at lyrics in English and in the language of the country
• Match up original to the English

First there was the Spanish football team winning Euro 08.

Then there was Rafa Nadal winning Wimbledon.

And now, Carlos Sastre has made it a hat trick of Spanish wins, riding into Paris as winner of this year’s Tour de France.After my post on Saturday re my dilemna, I did feel rather sorry for Cadel Evans who lost out to a Spaniard in the time trial last year too (Alberto Contador who was unable to defend his title as his team Astana were not invited in the wake of Vinokourov-gate last year) but he was simply too tired I think to pull it out of the bag.

However, I must admit that I was secretly really pleased to see Sastre triumph as he rode out of his skin in the time trial. Not simply because he’s Spanish and from one of my favourite towns (Avila), but because he was SO humble about it all. At every opportunity he praised his team who supported him so well throughout – and they deserved it too.

Without the Schleck brothers, Stuart O’Grady, Fabian Cancellara, Jens Voigt (who lost his saddle somewhere on the Champs d’Elysees!) Kurt Asle-Aversen, Nicky Sorensen and Volodymir Gustov, Sastre would have been as isolated and tired as Cadel Evans.

He dedicated his win to his brother-in-law, José María Jiménez, who was also a professional cyclist who died in 2004. As Sastre said ‘su derrota era querer ganar esta carrera’ so it made his win all the sweeter for him and his wife, Piedi, Jiménez’s sister.

So here’s to Carlos Sastre – ¡muy bien hecho!

With the Beijing Olympics a couple of weeks away, here’s a news story from China about one policeman’s efforts to make visitors feel welcome.

In an effort to help tourists, he has learned how to greet people in English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Japanese, Russian, Finnish, Italian and Portuguese. Phew! And he did it by chatting to tourists from those countries – just the advice we give to learners – have go!

Not sure about his taste in movies though ;o)

Although I no longer regularly teach French, I still love the annual French phenomenon that is the Tour de France. I used to make a big fuss over it with an interactive map and daily updated chart – I think that was when my NQT year really seemed to reap rewards as the kids at the tough comp where I taught fought to be my ‘updaters’.

Anyhow, I’ve been Tweeting all week with @sharongs and @etalbert amongst others about Le Tour, and my house has been a hive of Tour activity as my boys have been avidly watching ITV4 each night, and Mr S has been getting overexcited as his cycling fantasy teams have been doing rather well (his Vélo games team was in 87th place yesterday!)

So the big question is…. who will win?

I don’t share the opinion of some fellow Twits who are missing Armstrong and Ullrich – I love the more open race this year. From the start, I’ve been rooting for Mark Cavendish for the sprints and Cadel Evans for GC. With Cavendish abandoning to concentrate on the Olympics – and to give other sprinters a bit of a chance too ;o) – all my supportive vibes have been channelled the Aussie’s way.

However, Carlos Sastre is in yellow going into the penultimate stage – what shall I do? He’s Spanish after all! Should I be loyal to my Spanish preferences and yell for Sastre, or to my original choice and scream for Evans to make up the deficit of just over a minute and a half? The likely outcome is a win for Evans as Sastre is not a great time trialler, but anything can happen in Le Tour!

But I really can’t see this animation coming true – sorry, Bernhard Eisel – but, just to be on the safe side, watch out for cows, Carlos and Cadel!!

Although Fernando Alonso let the side down, Spain are at it again, winning!

On Saturday, Alejandro Valverde opened the Tour de France with a win on Stage one from Brest to Plumelec.

And then on Sunday, Rafael Nadal finally conquered Roger Federer on grass at Wimbledon after a roller coaster of a game. Without the good old English weather, Rafa would have won in straight sets, and saved much nailbiting, but we’d have missed an epic tussle between two incredible tennis players.
And to cap it all, he became the first player to ever climb into the Royal Box!!

Not sure how Rafa’d feel about the assertion that he’s ‘ante todo, español’ as a proud Mallorquí, but all of Spain is proud of him!