Free English Class! Topic: Sports! ⚽🏅🏐 (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about sports.

This is probably one of the big topics when you are learning

English. There are so many people in the world that love

watching sports and that love playing sports and it is a

relatively familiar topic for most people. I know we just

recently watched the Olympics. I know there are several

sporting matches every evening, in every country, in all

different types of sports. So, I thought it would be a good

idea to do a lesson about sports. I'm sure you'll enjoy

it. Whether you are someone who watches a lot of sports, maybe

you're someone who plays a lot of sports or maybe you're just

someone who's curious and wants to learn some words and phrases

in English to be able to talk about sports. So, the first

picture is also from Eugene and it's the phrase sports fan or

the term sports fan. When you are someone who likes watching

a certain sport, we say that You are a sports fan and then

we use the word fan in other ways as well. We'll say things

like, are you a fan of football? Which basically means

do you watch football? Are you a fan of ice skating? Which is

an Olympic winter sport and you might say, oh yeah, I'm a big

fan. So, a sports fan is someone who likes to watch a

sport. You can see in Eugene's picture here, the stands are

filled with sports fans. People have all worn red because the

Toronto FC their one uniform is red so that is their team color

so they have worn red all of the fans are there wearing red

to support their team and then we have something called a

super fan a super fan is someone who is really really

into a sport in English when you say someone is into

something it means they really really like it a super fan is

more likely to dress up on game day they're more likely to do

crazy things. They might paint things on their faces. Um in

university, sometimes super fans will some guys will paint

letters on their chest or other weird things when they go to a

game but a super fan is someone who really really loves the

sport that they watch. Of course, fans will cheer. One of

the things that you do when you watch a game. Whether you're at

home or in the stadium is that you will probably cheer when

your team does well. You will say things like yay. You will

say things like go go go when the player on your team is

about to score and then you might just sell yell yeah or

something like that when they do score but you will

definitely cheer when your team scores so I have to mention

this this is a lesson from about two anda/ 2 years ago but

I have redone the lesson I've added a whole bunch of new

words I removed a couple of words so if some parts of this

lesson seem familiar to a few of you that not all of you were

here two and a 2 years ago that why. So, a person who plays a

sport though is called a player. Someone who watches a

sport is called a fan or a spectator. We'll talk about

that later. Someone who plays a sport is called a player. We

have what are called professional athletes.

Professional athletes are people who are so good at

playing the game that they get paid to play it. Their job is

to play a sport. When I was younger, was a brief moment

where I thought oh it would be so cool to be a professional

hockey player. To be a professional athlete who plays

hockey. Um but I don't think I was good enough. I never really

pursued that dream. But could you imagine what it would be

like to be paid to play the sport that you love playing?

That must be a really cool experience. It must be a lot of

fun to be a professional athlete. We also have amateur

athletes. I'm sure many of us have been or are amateur

athletes. In Canada it's quite common for people to play

volleyball one night a week. People play hockey. We call it

the Rec League recreational league. Uh people play soccer

or football as you might call it in your country in the

summer. There are a lot of amateur athletes in Canada. And

I'm sure in your country as well. People who play a sport

just for exercise and for enjoyment. And they don't get

paid. They don't get paid anything. When you play a team

sport, you are on a team. Um there's a difference between

individual sports like running and those kinds of things. And

team sports like football or hockey or basketball or

volleyball. Where you have teammates. So a team is a group

of people who all wear the same uniform usually and they play

the same sport together and this can be amateur or

professional. Um you can be on a a team as a professional

athlete and as an amateur athlete, you can be on a team

as well. Uh and then, again, I mentioned the word teammates.

Teammates are the other people who are on your team. This is

the Phoenix Mercury. It is one of the teams in the WNBA, the

Women's National Basketball Association and the the woman

in the middle, the player in the middle is Kia Nurse. She's

one of my favorite players on that team. She's Canadian. I

really, really like her. But a starting lineup, whenever a

professional or amateur team plays against another team, the

players who start the game are usually your best players and

that group of players is called the starting lineup. So, when

there is a basketball game, there are five players on the

starting lineup they start the game. When you go to watch a

football game or soccer game. There are 11 players I think

who are on the starting lineup. Those are the players who

usually they're the best players. Um most of them are

usually the best players on the team and they make up the

starting lineup. Sometimes depending on the sport the team

will have a captain. In hockey the captain of the team is not

the coach. The captain is a player who kind of leads the

team in terms of keeping them happy and kind of demonstrating

good behavior. In hockey, the captain usually has the letter

C on their jersey. You can see on his hockey jersey, he has

the letter C. This means that he is the captain of the team.

So, the captain again doesn't show the players how to play

but the captain kind of leads in a way where they kind of

show they they're like a model player usually they're a

veteran player or a really good player and they kind of lead

the team in that sense they they give direction on how to

be excited how to act in a positive way in those kinds of

things and we have of course a coach. A coach is a person who

decides how to train the team. The coach decides who will play

and who will sit on the bench. The coach decides what

strategies a team is going to use in order to try and win.

The coach basically prepares the team before the game and

then makes decisions during the game so the team can do the

best that they can. Again, a coach does not play. A coach

usually wears a suit and tie and a lot of sports, a coach

will dress very, very nicely. Um and they will be on the

sidelines or on the bench or off to the side of the field

and they will give advice to the players and make decisions

about how to best try and win the game. We of course,

depending on the sport, you will have referees or umpires,

there's a bunch of different names or the people who make

sure all the players follow the rules of the game. Every sport

that you play has rules and it's important that everyone

follows the rules but humans are humans and sometimes, we

break rules Either intentionally like we decide to

break the rule or by accident, you just accidentally step off

the field or you accidentally trip someone and then the

referee or umpire will probably blow a whistle. I think I have

a whistle up here. We'll look at that in a sec. Uh and they

will stop the game and then they will either penalize one

of the teams. There might be a foul or a card or something

like that. But a referee or umpire usually Make sure the

game goes smoothly. One thing to note in North America, we

usually call referee's refs and we call umpires ums. So we

shorten the words. The words aren't that long but so you'll

you might hear people in the stand say ah come on ref that

was a bad call. Or you might hear at a baseball game. You

might say ah come on that was a strike. So you might hear

people use the short forms of those two words. Referee

becomes ref. Umpire becomes I So, depending on the sport and

what country you live in, there are definitely times when you

play a game but there's also times where you practice. In

Canada, we usually refer to when a team gets together on a

non-game day to be to work at becoming better at the sport.

We call it a practice or we call it training. Um so, often

times, a team will have a few games each week but they will

also have times where they go to practice or where they have

or where they have training. Where they just get to with the

other players and coaches and they improve their skills. So

they might practice dribbling if it's basketball. They might

practice shooting if it's basketball. Shooting the ball

if it's football or hockey. They might practice skating

drills. They might do a whole bunch of things so that they

become better at the sport. You practice a lot so that you can

play a game or play a match. Depending on the sport you're

playing. It will possibly have a different name. Uh in Canada

sometimes people use match. Sometimes people use game. Game

I think is the general term for a time when one team plays

against someone else or a person plays against someone

else. Um if you do something wrong in a game, there will

most likely be a whistle. Referees and umpires usually

have a whistle in most sports. Some sports they don't. They

just need to yell really loudly. But if you hear a

whistle in a soccer game. Play will stop and then the referee

will make a decision whether someone is getting a warning or

a yellow card or a red card or maybe it's just off sides or

another rule has been broken and they blow the whistle to

kind of remind everyone of the rules and restart the game. So,

I mentioned these words a bit earlier. People who watch the

game are called fans. When you're at the game, you're

called spectators or you're just called the crowd. So, the

crowd cheered or the spectators cheered. Um so, if you are at a

game and you are watching a game, you're part of the crowd

that's watching the game or you're one of the spectators.

You're part of the spectators who are watching the game. Um

let me get a little sip of water here. Often times,

spectators or the crowd at a game will wear the colors that

their team normally wears. You'll see in this picture,

they're wearing, it looks like yellow and some purple for the

team that they are cheering for. And you will sit in the

stands which I think is short for the word grandstand but

these are either called stands or bleachers, okay? When you go

to a game, if it's inside of a building or if it's outside, it

will usually have stands or bleachers. Um I think bleed are

smaller than stands. Like at our school we have bleachers in

our gym. Uh basically it's row seating. There's not chairs.

There's like these benches row on row. And you sit in the

stands or you sit in the bleachers when you cheer on

whatever team you've gone to watch. Um the bleachers are

sometimes really hard and your butt gets a little sore. So

people often bring a small cushion if they're going to sit

on the bleachers for a long time. So, we have two terms. We

have home. When you go to watch a game, if I go to Toronto to

watch a game and I'm watching the Toronto Maple Leafs, they

are the home team. The home team is the team that's playing

in the stadium or on the field that is in their city. The

opposite of home is either the away team, the guest team, or

the visiting team. So, we could say the away team, the

visitors, the guests. We often in Canada use home and away.

You can see on the scoreboard there's a spot for the home

team's score and there's a spot for the away team's score. But

you can also use guest or visitor. You'll see variations

of this. But again the home team is the team that's playing

in their home city. In their home stadium. So let's talk

about where people play. People play sports in stadiums. People

play sports in arenas. So a stadium is a place to go for

American football. Generally referred to as a stadium and

then an arena is generally used for hockey. So you go to a

hockey arena to watch a hockey game. Look at how nice that ice

looks. It's very very smooth. Um baseball games are usually

played at a park or ballpark. Um so it's not really a park.

But it's very green and it looks a little bit like a park.

But it's main purpose is for people to play baseball. So you

will go to a ballpark. You might go And watch a game on a

court. So you might watch tennis or basketball. Um there

are a lot of sports that are played on a court which is just

a surface that's prepared with the proper lines for that

sport. You can see this is a basketball court and it has the

lines of the court, the center line, the three point line, the

foul line. So you might watch a game that is played on a court.

Or it might be played on a field or pitch. By the way,

this picture is also from Eugene. This is of BMO Field

where the Toronto FC play. So, thanks again Eugene. I think

that's the the third and last photo that I used from Eugene

but thank you. But you would call this a field. Notice I

said it's BMO field. In England, in Canada, we say BMO

but it's the Bank of Montreal, I think, BMO. Um so, this is

BMO Field where the Toronto FC play. Um in different parts of

the world, you might call it a pitch as well. You play on the

soccer pitch or the football pitch. I mentioned earlier that

there's something called motorsports motorsports are

sports where you drive either race cars or motorcycles or

some sort of vehicle in order to try and get first place.

Some people think that motorsports aren't real sports.

But there is a word in English, motorsports, which makes me

think that they are a sport. So you might watch Formula 1, you

might watch IndyCar. In North America, there's something

called Nascar. I'm sure in your part of the world, there are

different kinds of motorsport with different kinds of

vehicles and they would of course have their competitions

on a race track. A race track is like a road but it's

specially designed to go usually in a circle and it's

there so that people can go in a race and they can do their

motorsport. When there is a game, there is almost always a

score. I just put 31 here for fun but there's usually a

score. In English, common phrases would be, what's the

score? Or did you see the game last night? Yeah, what was the

final score? The score is the number of goals or points that

a team has gotten versus the other team when they're

playing. So, when you watch a football game or soccer game,

I'm using football as soccer right now. The score is usually

something like three to one or five to two or two to nothing

or one to nothing. But when you watch something like

basketball, the score is usually 102-90 or 97 -78.

basketball, it's a fun sport. People score a lot. And then

you have a scoreboard as well. So, you could see on this

scoreboard, it's 31 to 17. I would imagine they're playing

American football. That's the kind of score you would see on

a scoreboard when you watch American football but you can

see a scoreboard is a big light board that will show you what

the score is when you watch a sporting event. Um often times,

when you go to see a game, it's nice to sit in a place where

you have a clear view of the scoreboard. Sometimes, you go

to a sporting event and the scoreboard is far away or

you're sitting somewhere where you can't see it. I like to be

able to see the scoreboard so that I know what the score is.

Now, I talked about the score depending on the the sport that

is being played. You will score a goal, you will score a point,

you will get a point, you will get a goal. There's a number of

ways to refer to it but generally, in most sports, the

reason you play is to get points or to score goals so

that you can get more goals or points than the other team and

you can win the game. So, in this shot, you can see this

girl is about to kick the soccer ball. She is going to

try and get a goal so that her team can get another point.

Notice I do kind of flip goal and point around a lot. That's

fairly common when talking about sports. And of course you

want to win. Um you want to win the game. You want to get a

win. Notice there's a a verb and a noun version. So a team

can have seven wins. So that's the noun. They've won seven

times. When you play a game you want to win the game. So to win

is the verb form. Um so the Goal of a team is to win.

That's the goal. That's a lot of times people say it's not

important to win. It's just important to have fun but in

professional sports, I think it's also important to win. And

of course, the opposite is a loss, okay? So, if you have a

seven wins, you might have three losses. That would be a

pretty good record. Um and then, I think I don't, I don't

have the verb form but the verb form is to lose, okay? So, L O

S E. So, the Noun is a loss, the verb is to lose. And then

sometimes you have a tie. I think this might be called a

draw in some sports. Um but a tie is when each team has the

same number of points. Or each team has the same number of

goals. Sometimes people are disappointed with a tie. I'm

usually a little bit disappointed when a game is

tied. Overtime, sometimes when there is a tie, depending on

the sport, there might be overtime. Overtime is extra

time in the game where Each team tries to win. So you can

see here the score is 1414. You can also see this scoreboard

says home and guest. The last scoreboard said home in a way.

But this game is tie and they might then have overtime. It

really depends on the sport. Some sports you're allowed to

end in a tie. Other sports sometimes have overtime or

multiple overtimes until someone wins. And they might

even have a shootout. That's where each team takes turns

having one player shoot on the net or try to score in order to

find out who the winner is. Players who don't play are

usually on a bench. They literally sit on a bench in

some sports but these players have chairs even if it's all

chairs. We still call it a bench. And people will even

describe themselves as you know oh I play for this team but I'm

a bench player or I'm on the starting lineup. So a bench

player is someone who doesn't start the game. So a bench

player is someone who starts the game sitting and probably

gets subbed in later. Most teams will have a uniform. Here

you can see this uniform is for a baseball team. They have a

helmet. Um probably they only wear the helmet when they're

doing the batting. Um and then they have all obviously all of

the uniform is in the team colors. And then you need

equipment. Um I didn't talk about cricket at all but

cricket is one game where you need certain kinds of equipment

in order to play the game. Uh you need certain gloves, you

need a bat, you need padding as well. So, some sports require

equipment. Some sports require a lot of equipment. One of the

reasons that hockey is an expensive sport to play is that

you need a lot of equipment to play hockey. Whereas soccer is

a little bit cheaper to play because you don't need as much

equipment. You need a good pair of shoes and maybe one other

piece of protective gear. Um sometimes, when you play a

sport professionally, you will have a sponsor. You can see

this car is sponsored by Michelin. If you look at the

very front of the car, you see the word Michelin there. So, it

looks like the Michelin Tire Company is one of the sponsors.

A sponsor is someone who gives money so that a sport can

exist, okay? So, many teams are sponsored by different brands

in the world. Different companies will sponsor a And

then often a professional team will play in a league like the

National Football League or the European Football League which

are both different kinds of football. Um but a league is a

group of teams where everyone is at the same level or very

close in skill level and they play against each other

repeatedly until someone proves themselves to be the best team.

Um if you are in a league, you will have a schedule. So, maybe

you have a 14-game season or a 90-game season. You have a

schedule that shows every day when you are going to be

playing that game. And you have a season. So, different sports

have different seasons. The NBA, the basketball league in

North America, their season starts in about five or six

days. I think the Raptors play their first basketball game on

October 20th and their season goes to mid to late spring.

That's their season. The National Football League, the

NFL, their season started in September and it goes to about

the first second week of February when they have the

Super Bowl, one of the biggest championship games in the

world. So, when you play a sport, especially a

professional sport, you usually have a season. And then, as you

play through your season, there are standings. So, this is a

list of the teams in order of who's doing the best down to

who's doing the worst. So, the team at the top has the most

wins. The team at the bottom has the fewest wins and

probably the most losses. So, that's what we would call the

standings. So, teams are always trying to move up in the

standings. If they lose a game, they might move down in the

standings. You always want to move up in the standings. Um

sometimes you have a regular season but you might also have

a tournament. So, our teams at school are school sports teams.

They have a regular season. They play about 10 or 15 games,

but every once in a while on a weekend, they'll go to a

tournament. A tournament is outside of their season. The

games don't count towards their standings but it's just a day

to go and play against a bunch of other teams one after the

other. Tournaments are pretty fun. Covid has made them pretty

much impossible right now. I don't think we go to

tournaments right now. But a tournament is a fun thing to

do. It's usually over a weekend or a long weekend. And then of

course at the end of a season you have playoffs where

different teams play each other. When you are in playoffs

if you lose you are probably out. When you're out it means

that your season is over. So there's a regular season at the

end. There's a time when teams the best teams maybe the top

four or the top eight teams start to play each other until

they determine who is the best. And that usually happens in the

finals or the championship game. So the very last game of

the season determines the winner of the whole season. Uh

and it's usually called the finals or the championship. Now

it might be a series. Many times it's best three out of

five. Best best five out of seven. So in hockey they

usually play during the playoffs. They play seven games

and you need to win four of the seven So best three out of

five, best four out of seven. I think I said five out of seven.

Um but usually it is a best of. So it is a series of games

where you try to find who is the best. And then here just a

couple of things to wrap up the lesson. Um when the ref blows

the whistle, you might get a penalty. In some sports, you

might get a card in other sports. Um if you do something

really bad, you might be ejected from the game. When

you're ejected, it means that you're at to leave the building

while the game is still being played. You have to do

something pretty serious to be ejected from a game. And then

finally, if you do something really bad, you might get a

suspension. A suspension means that you probably get ejected

and then you can't play the next game or maybe the game

after as well. Often when players do something bad during

the game or even if they do something in life, like if they

get arrested or they get caught doing something illegal, they

will get a suspension and they will not be able to play.