ESL-Library

Sports Themed Lesson Plans and Activities for English Class

The ESL-Library team will be watching the Canadian Olympians with excitement and pride this month! London’s 2012 Olympic slogan “Inspire a Generation” inspired this month’s teaching theme. This August we invite you to inspire your classroom to learn about sports in English while you take in London’s Olympic events. Use our NEW Summer Olympics flashcard set to review vocabulary related to sports, athletes, equipment, and venues. Visit our Famous Things section for sports lessons on Track and Field, Soccer (known as football in London), or Golf. We also have a NEW Simple Sentences lesson on Sports and Athletes! Don’t forget to try our popular ready-made lesson plan on The Olympic Games (podcast coming on Wednesday). You can also remind your students to learn short bits of English by following the official twitter tag #London2012.

New Lesson Plans and Flashcards this Month

• Discussion Starters: Fair Trade
• Simple Sentences: Sports and Athletes
• Famous Things: Track and Field
• Famous People: The Beatles
• Flashcard Set: Summer Olympics
• Teacher’s Guide: Mini-Debates (Coming next week!)

In the works: Board Games based on sections from the ESL-Library!

August Features

Famous Things – The Olympic Games: Our popular Famous Things lesson plan includes warm up questions, a reading, vocabulary review, and discussion questions. (July 27-August 12)

Every Day is a Holiday – International Lefthanders’ Day: Only 7-10% of people are left-handed by nature. This lesson is all about the celebration of being a southpaw! Take a vote to see how many people are lefthanded in your class. (August 13)

Famous People – The Beatles: 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the formation of The Beatles! We received many requests for a lesson plan on this legendary rock and roll band. We hope you’ll enjoy this lesson with your English learners.

Famous People – 33 Brave Chilean Miners: It was just over two years ago when 33 miners were trapped underneath the ground in Chile. We watched closely and published a lesson the moment the miners were free. Try our popular Famous People lesson plan on the anniversary of this historic event. (August 5)

Holiday – Ramadan: More than one billion Muslims celebrate the month of Ramadan. Students learn important facts about the holiday and the Muslim faith, including the prophet Muhammad and the Five Pillars of Faith. (July 20 -August 19)

Be sure to check out August’s Lesson Plan Calendar for more featured lessons. We also invite you to browse the Something To Talk About suggestions on our blog, including our most recent post about the gun law debate.

NEW on the ESL-Library Blog

Do you say “The Olympic Games is” or “The Olympic Games are”? Each month our editor answers some tough questions that come up while editing our lesson plans and activities (such as the he/she/they debate). Some questions come from teachers, and others come from writers or other staff members. Tanya’s own teaching experience also provides a wealth of material for reflection. This month Tanya will be weighing in on the plural and singular use of “The Olympics”.  We’re also looking forward to a new post from Shelly Terrell, one of our favourite bloggers! Watch for ideas on keeping your students active in the classroom.

Happy teaching!
Sincerely,

The Staff at ESL-Library

PS–Thank you for supporting Red River Press, a little online publishing company with great big ambition. A special thank you goes out to all of the tweechers who retweet our stuff regularly, including @VickyLoras, a Canadian teacher in Greece, and @Alexandra_And, a teacher who blogs in Portuguese.

Tara Benwell

Tara Benwell is a freelance writer and editor who specializes in materials and articles for the ELT industry. She is the media director and head writer for ESL-Library. Her debut novel, The Proper Order of Things is available on Amazon and in the iBookstore.   Website: http://www.tarabenwell.com   Twitter: @tarabenwell