Help please: Sports song!

Wow, you are just amazing with all the comments on the East West North South thread – thank you so much.

So here’s today’s request – I’d love your help again.

I’m working on a new sports song.

Well actually, the song is just about finished with a *very* catchy chorus. Β (You can hear a demo here)

But which sports to include?

Write up your top 5 here – the ones the kids always ask about – and let’s see what we get.

Remember, keeping the list *short* is the key!

Ones from the previous sports song are cool, or new ones – in either case we’ll be doing up funky new Baby Monkey graphics.

Thank Β you again!

Be genki,

Richard

Richard Graham

I'm on a mission to make education Genkiβ€”fun, exciting, and full of life! Genki English has now been researched by Harvard University and licensed by the British Council around the world. The results have been magical! Now I'm here to help you teach amazing lessons, with all the materials prepared for you, and to double your teaching income so you can sustainably help many more students in the future!

35 Responses to “Help please: Sports song!”

  1. Carolyn

    The sports my elementary students talk about the most are: dodgeball, baseball, soccer, tennis, tag (if that counts as a sport).

  2. Jennifer

    Hi Kids here really like cycling, football, bowling, tennis and basketball…
    not sure what the rest of the world likes but they would work well here πŸ™‚ Good luck and looking forward to hearing the new version!

  3. Margit

    I often get in trouble because I don’t know the kid’s requests in proper English;
    trouble number one all little ones (up tp 2nd grade ask for):

    horizontal bar
    うんてい
    then further favorites:

    unicycle
    karate
    track and field

    these are 5!

  4. Ana

    I work with these sports: swimming, run, football, tennis and basket. I hope this information help you.

  5. Eric

    The “top five” among students will probably depend on where they are from. I’ve found my Chinese students don’t really know about any “foreign” sports, like hockey (Canada), baseball (America) or cricket (Britain). Instead, they obsess over basketball, football (some semantic confusion with that one, too), badminton and ping-pong; they also consider Kung Fu to be a “sport” here.

    Are you going for something “universal” or something “popular”? I don’t think you can say any winter sport is “universal” (exclude hockey), and what’s “popular” depends on who you ask.

    As a Canadian, my personal choices would be hockey, football (carry and pass variety), basketball and baseball because we have professional league teams in each of these.

  6. Miah

    I think it’s going to be another hit and really look forward to the song.

    Anyway, I would go for the following types of sports:

    1.Baseball
    2. Soccer
    3. Swimming
    4. Dodgeball
    5. Basketball

  7. Lauren

    My students answer
    1. soccer
    2. swimming
    3. basketball
    4. baseball
    5. kendo
    during the line quiz. (badminton, volleyball are answered when there is more time to think. but that is about the frequency they come up)

    My schools have a soccer club, badminton club, and basketball club. I have five or six students that go to kendo lessons after school twice a week.

  8. Serena

    For Korea,

    I see that kids know:

    soccer
    tennis
    swimming
    ping pong
    badminton

    ~Serena

  9. Charlie

    Hi!

    In Austria I would go for:
    Football
    Tennis
    Gymnastics
    Skiing/Snowboarding
    Iceskating

    If you wanted something a bit different, then roller blading and wave-boarding are also very popular.

    Hope that helps,
    Charlie

  10. Tanya Watanabe

    baseball, gymnastics, basketball, track, soccer.

    It would be nice to have sports using “do”. Do judo, do kendo, do gymnastics… I don’t know. We always get kids saying “play basketball” and then they make the mistake and use “play judo”. All the track events!

  11. Neval

    Hi,

    The ones I catch from my 5 year old daughter are:

    Swimming
    Running
    Roller/Ice skating/boardind
    Gymnastics
    Tennis

  12. Paulbecky

    Hi!
    These are the common sports that the kids here will be exposed to:
    1) table-tennis
    2) soccer
    3) badminton
    4) volleyball
    5) taekwondo

    Looking forward to the new song and new graphics!

  13. Ruth

    Hi, here the favourite sports are:
    football
    tennis
    swimming
    skiing and snowboarding
    basketball

    The English in me wanted to put rugby which is catching on over here surprisingly quickly but the kids are more likely to play basketball at school.
    Cheers, Ruth.

  14. Iwona

    Poland: skiing, volleyball, diving, karate, gymnastics,

  15. Iwona

    oh, yes, ice skating and skating too

  16. kolinda

    Football, basketball, tennis, swimming and skiing….thanks

  17. Pat

    The most poplular sports that the kids talk about are: soccer, American Football, baseball, cycling,
    and swimming.

    I would like to see new sports for the voacbulary..such as swimmming, gymnastics, wrestling, skating and cycling.

  18. Evelyne

    Hi there,

    For my French students…
    dancing like
    – ballet
    – hip hop
    – streetdance
    – jazz
    – ballroom etc.

    cycling (like Tour de France)

    Thanks and keep up your good work,

    Evelyne from France

    Maybe not the first sports you might think about,

  19. Gayane

    1. Football (which is soccer)
    2. Judo
    3. Skiing/sledging/ice skating
    4. basketball
    5. tennis (table tennis)

    I would recommend making a separate list of winter activities and sports (snowballs, making a snowman, skiing, skating, hockey etc) and another unified one.
    In Ukraine kids have no idea of baseball, rugby,dodgeball..)

  20. Lines

    I would like the same sports with different pronoums I, you, he//she// it… in order our pupils learn the third person singular without teaching it, only singing.
    In spain paddle it’s a fashionable sport now.
    I go swimming, she goes swimming.
    Thank you

  21. Liliana

    football
    swimming
    dancing
    cycling
    karate

    πŸ™‚

  22. richard

    Does everyone, even outside Japan, have problems with kids mixing up when to use play and do with different sports?

  23. richard

    @lines: good idea, what I’ll do is to have the “echo” empty so the kids can either just repeat or change into he or she!

  24. Margit

    @richard,

    I myself are having problems with “do”. I ended up interviewing gumby for a bunch of sports last week, where I didn’t know what to use.
    Well, I know when to use or not use play. The problem is more that I’m often not sure where to use “do” , something else (like “ride”, “fly” or nothing at all.

  25. lehang

    I think the sports should be popular around the world, not only in America or Europe. So my lists are:
    1. football (soccer)
    2. basketball
    3. Swimming
    4. volleyball
    5. cycling

  26. Janet Gray

    In the United States the most popular are:
    soccer
    American football
    basketball
    baseball
    volleyball

  27. erika

    It seems like we have a global problem here… I have hardly heard of some of the sports listed above (dodgeball, unicycle, badminton!), since they are not at all popular in my country (Italy)! I agree with Lehang, the sports should be popular around the world, and I would go for:
    1) SOCCER
    2) Basketball
    3) Swimming
    4) Volleyball
    5) Tennis

  28. Amanda

    Our Top 5:

    Soccer
    Hockey
    Horse back riding
    swimming
    skiing

  29. Nadia

    The sports different from the previous song are:

    -dancing
    -swimming
    -horse riding
    -karate or judo
    -skating

    As for verbs do and play, they mix it all the time. It’s not easy to see the difference between : I play tennis, I do exercises and I go swimming.

  30. Nena

    If you want top 5 global I would say:

    Swimming
    Soccer
    Tennis
    Basketball
    Volley

  31. Gen

    My students mention
    Football
    Tennis
    Gymnastics
    Swimming
    Taekwando

    Also, would it be possible to have the choice between teaching ‘football’ and ‘soccer’? In Spain they play ‘futbol’, so my little ones get confused when they suddenly have to refer to a game with a round ball as soccer and with an oval ball as football.And yes, they use play for everything- including swimming!

  32. Claudia

    Hi,
    I’m also from Austria and my students especially love:
    football (boys’ favourite)
    horseback riding (girls’ favourite)
    swimming
    skiing
    tennis

  33. richard

    Thank you everyone for your votes!

    Here are the results:

    swimming 17
    basketball 13
    tennis 12
    football 12 (many of these were for soccer!)
    soccer 9

    skiing 7
    volleyball 6
    baseball 6
    gymnastics 5

    So actually it looks like we did pretty well with the original sports song.

    Hopefully I’ll have some demos up on the forum for you soon!

    Runners up were:
    cycling, karate, riding, badminton, dancing

  34. Janet Gray

    In the States we say horseback riding instead of horse riding.

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