Sport for everyone: Calgary 1988

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Sport for everyone mini-series, episode 67) is a short documentary about two of the most famous stories of the 1988 Winter Olympics, in Calgary, Canada. The first is the bobsleigh team from Jamaica, a hot island in the Caribbean with no snow and no ice: two American men who lived there had the idea, and soldiers from the Jamaican army learned this new sport in a few months. In Calgary their sled turned over on the third run; nobody was hurt, and the men walked next to their sled to the finish line, and some people clapped. The second is Eddie Edwards, an English ski jumper with very little money, borrowed boots and bad eyesight, whose thick glasses got foggy under his goggles. He came last in both of his events, but he jumped further than anyone from Britain before him, the crowd loved him, and people called him "Eddie the Eagle". The episode closes on the Olympic idea that the most important thing is not to win, but to take part. The narration is in the past simple, with the present simple to introduce the two stories; 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 (bobsleigh and eyesight). 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 drawing of the Jamaican team walking next to their sled to the finish, a 1988 photo of Eddie Edwards signing autographs for children, a photo of a Jamaican sled at the 2014 Olympics in green, gold and black), 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: Is taking part more important than winning? What do you think?). Learners should know the past simple of common verbs. The pack's key words explain the new words (bobsleigh, sled, track, army, finish line, clap, ski jumper, borrow, eyesight, glasses, goggles, last).

Curriculum alignment

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