Tag Archives: sports

Bravo Rafa! and some tennis vocabulary

Great, great Rafa! Although he was not at his peak, he was hungry for the prize  and Rafa Nadal has just won his 6th Roland Garros title and  maintains  his top position in ATP rankings which, in case of losing this final ,  he might  have given to Djokovic. And what is more, he  has equaled Bjorn Borg’s record of six Roland Garros titles .

Have you seen the match? Could you understand the umpire? Tennis has got a lot of words that might be Greek to some of you. If you want to learn what some of them refer to , read the list below to learn some of them and then next time you watch a tennis match , listen for these words you have just learned.

♥ATP Association of Tennis Professionals. The ATP are the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuit.

Serve the shot that begins each point, in which the server hits the ball after tossing it into the air

♥Love no points

♥Match point the last point that a player needs to win in order to win a match

♥Ace a very fast serve that your opponent cannot reach with their racket

♥Deuce the score in tennis when both players have 40 points.

♥Lob a shot that is hit in a high arc, usually over the opponent’s head

♥Tiebreaker an extra game played to decide who will win when both players have six games each.

♥Rally a long series of shots

♥Let a service that hits the net and must be played again

♥Grand Slam the four most prestigious tournaments; Wimbledon ,Roland Garros and the U.S. and Australian Opens

♥Crosscourt a shot in which the ball is hit diagonally across the court

♥Advantage used for saying the name of a player who scores a point after ‘deuce’ , For ex: Advantage Nadal

If you feel you want to learn more vocab  about tennis, click here. Thank you Rafa, you are a legend!

Guess the Game

Still on the subject of sports, today let’s focus on a writing activity where you’ll have to make use of lots of things learnt this week, namely

  • Modals: have to/don’t have to/ must/mustn’t
  • Vocabulary related to sports
  • Prepositions of movement

What to do?? Simple!!! Look at the following  pictures. What do they all have in common? Exactly!! They’re all sports.

What do you have to do? Choose a sport and give a good definition for it, mentioning everything you know about it as regards equipment, rules of the game, where you can practise it…etc. Make sure you do not write the name of the sport as we, readers, will have to guess the name of the sport you are describing.

Need a dictionary? Here : Monolingual http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

Bilingual  http://www.wordreference.com/es/

Ready??

Unusual Sports

Victory belongs to the most persevering. Napoleon Bonaparte

There are no gains without pains. Adlai Stevenson

These inspirational quotes are  aimed at people who need some sort of encouragement when finally and after years of putting off taking up some kind of exercise they have finally decided  to come to terms with the acute necessity our body seems to have for some sort of physical activity.

 Couch potatoes are not trendy but let’s face it ,going to the gym doesn’t guarantee a six pack, flat abs and a tight butt . In fact, if you are thinking that by overworking your body you’re going to look like Naomi Campbell or Hugh Jackman , you’ll soon give up. Engaging in sports activities like tennis, football and even walking for an hour or so  will keep you interested for a longer time . But if you find these sports too boring or too conventional , why don’t you try any of these ??

Pancake Racing : In which each participant carries a pancake in a frying pan. All the runners must toss their pancakes as they run and catch them in the frying pan.

Welly/Wellie wanging or throwing – A freestyle sport that originated in Britain, most likely in the county of Yorkshire. Competitors are required to hurl a Wellington boot as far as possible within boundary lines, from a standing or running start. Each player has three throws, the longest distance thrown within the zone wins. Note that the word wellie is also often spelt as welly.

Wheelbarrow and Straw Bale Race – Each player in the team races over 50 yards with 4 straw bales on the barrow, then tosses the bales over a 6ft height bar. The quickest team wins.

 Cheese-Rolling – During the annual Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, competitors race down a steep hill in Gloucestershire, attempting to catch a Double Gloucester cheese which has been set rolling from the top. Often this results in many injuries.

Haggis hurling or throwing – A Scottish game involving, yes you guessed it, throwing a haggis. Modern Haggis Hurling is judged on the basis of distance and accuracy of the throw (hurl) and a split or burst haggis is immediately disqualified, as the tradition dictates that the haggis must be fit to eat after landing, yummy. The sport requires subtle technique rather than brute force, as the hurl must result in a gentle landing to keep the haggis’ skin intact. Despite it’s eccentricity, the practitioners take the sport seriously, with a World Haggis Hurling Championship. Haggis Hurling was even supposed to be presented as a demonstration sport at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Plans to use a fake haggis in a hurling competition at a Highland festival in Melbourne have split the purists from those who are fearful of the mess a high-speed impacting example of Scotland’s national dish may cause (see Haggis gets a bashing from fakes). It is unclear to the uninitiated if the sport promotes the enjoyment of this often maligned delicacy (to which a famous ode of praise was once composed by Robbie Burns himself). According to a Canadian source that disapproves the practice as insensible, the haggis is the main event at the annual Burns Night celebrations held by Scots and Scottish wannabees the world over.

Now , have a look at this diagram you have helped me build with your contributions  during the lesson. I have used a tool called Gliffy, which I recommend since it’s free.


Taking Risks: Lesson Plan

When last week I asked my students:

Have you ever put your life at risk? or Have you ever done any extreme sports? I began to wonder whether I’ve ever had .
The truth is I’ve never been an adventurous person; maybe I was a bit more in the past when I was younger. I remember I used to like horror films and talking about paranormal phenomena with my friends. I even played the Ouija Board once or twice and went with some peers to visit a mansion ghost, which was said to live in a house in ruins in my own hometown; but I, at least, was pushing the limits of my own courage although I pretended otherwise. I remember the rush of adrenaline I experienced and the feeling of being amazingly brave. But these can be hardly be named extreme sports although some people would say that playing with the unknown is much worse than risking your life doing bungee jumping or sky diving something, I know, I’ll never have the guts to try.

Come to think of it, I’ve sometimes put my life at risk like when I hitchhiked in England being only 19, or refusing to cross the road when seeing a gang of punks drinking and I had to walk past. This counts as risky , doesn’t it?

But the maddest thing I’ve ever done was about 10 years ago in the Wagner Bros Park, in Madrid, when I rode in one of these ride thrill attractions. It was a vertical tower of about 60metres. You are launched up and , believe or not, you take off from your seat and you literally fly before dropping in a breathtaking descent. When I think about it, it still gives me the creeps… Well, I warned you , I’ve never been a thrill seeker!!

And you… Do you live on adrenaline rushes? Are you hooked on the buzz of the extreme?

If you would like to do a lesson on Extreme Sports and Taking Risks , click HERE