Sport for everyone: Blind football

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Sport for everyone mini-series, episode 66) is a short documentary about blind football. It opens on a match in Paris in 2024, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where thousands of people watch in silence because the players cannot see. Each team has five players: the four players on the pitch are blind and all wear eyeshades, soft masks over the eyes, so that everyone is the same, while the goalkeeper can see. The ball has a rattle inside; a player going for it must shout "voy", Spanish for "I'm going"; a guide behind the goal calls to the players, tells them where the goal is and sometimes hits the goalposts; boards along the sides keep the ball in the game. The crowd stays silent while the ball moves and cheers when a team scores. Blind football began in schools for blind children in Spain and Brazil, and it has been a Paralympic sport since 2004: Brazil won the gold medal five times in a row, but in Paris the winner was France. The narration is in the present simple, with the past simple for the history; no grammar point is taught. It is a listening comprehension episode: learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 8 on facts and 2 on vocabulary (eyeshades and guide). The study topic is sport for everyone: who gets to play, then and now.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three pictures (a photo of the stadium under the Eiffel Tower, a photo of a match in Rio in 2016 with the goalkeeper without eyeshades, a drawing of the ball with its rattle inside), the key words and the 10 questions; a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key come with them. The text ends with an open question (Think about it: Would you like to play football with your eyes closed? Why, or why not?). Learners should know the present simple and the language of football. The pack's key words explain the new words (blind, pitch, eyeshades, goalkeeper, rattle, noise, guide, goalpost, crowd, silent, cheer, gold medal).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-encountering-others ("Rencontre avec l'autre"), Cycle 4 (4e). The episode targets CEFR level A2+.