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. ย (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 ย you again!
Be genki,
Richard
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
The sports my elementary students talk about the most are: dodgeball, baseball, soccer, tennis, tag (if that counts as a sport).
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 ๐ Good luck and looking forward to hearing the new version!
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
ใใใฆใ
then further favorites:
unicycle
karate
track and field
these are 5!
I work with these sports: swimming, run, football, tennis and basket. I hope this information help you.
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.
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
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.
For Korea,
I see that kids know:
soccer
tennis
swimming
ping pong
badminton
~Serena
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
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!
Hi,
The ones I catch from my 5 year old daughter are:
Swimming
Running
Roller/Ice skating/boardind
Gymnastics
Tennis
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!
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.
Poland: skiing, volleyball, diving, karate, gymnastics,
oh, yes, ice skating and skating too
Football, basketball, tennis, swimming and skiing….thanks
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.
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,
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..)
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
football
swimming
dancing
cycling
karate
๐
Does everyone, even outside Japan, have problems with kids mixing up when to use play and do with different sports?
@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!
@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.
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
In the United States the most popular are:
soccer
American football
basketball
baseball
volleyball
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
Our Top 5:
Soccer
Hockey
Horse back riding
swimming
skiing
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.
If you want top 5 global I would say:
Swimming
Soccer
Tennis
Basketball
Volley
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!
Hi,
I’m also from Austria and my students especially love:
football (boys’ favourite)
horseback riding (girls’ favourite)
swimming
skiing
tennis
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
In the States we say horseback riding instead of horse riding.
Thanks Janet, oh how I wish you had written this up a month ago! 8)
http://genkienglish.net/clipart/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11380#11380