Your students have the opportunity to learn about sports, current events, and foreign policy while enjoying the Olympics. Your language learners have the opportunity to learn about different cultures and traditions by following the Olympics online through videos, articles, images and infographics. The Olympics takes place August 5th to 21st in Rio, Brazil. Below is a list of websites with information, activities and resources for teaching about the Olympics. To discover activities related to the Olympics, check out our webinar recording, Teaching the Olympics.
To learn more about integrating technology to support English language learners, attend our free Friday webinars.
Web Resources with Activities
- Find videos of past Olympic sporting events here. One idea is to get your students to view a video of an Olympic event they have never seen and create a short presentation where they describe the event to their peers. They should provide current information about the athletes competing this year and the countries where this event is popular.
- Find photos related to the 2016 Olympics and past Olympics here. Students can chose one or two images and write a news article to support this image. Find web tools for creating news articles here.
- Students can choose one of the Olympic sports they are not familiar with and create a digital poster presentation detailing the history of the sport, current competitors, and interesting facts. Find web tools for creating digital posters here.
- Have students choose an Olympic athlete who is competing in their favorite sport or represents the country to write a biography. Read Write Web has a bio cube interactive students can complete to help them write their biography. Download the pdf version if your students do not have access to computers.
- Have students research the statistics of different Olympic sports and create infographics interpreting what these statistics mean. They can make predictions for the 2016 Olympics based on their research or predict top competitors or possible outcomes. Find over 20 web tools and apps for creating infographics here.
- The Olympic site has an official education toolkit with handouts, activities, and resources that will be coming out soon here.
- Find lesson plans related to the Olympics in the following sites:
Check out the Teaching with Technology Certification course we offer online.
Live TESOL webinars are presented every Friday at 4 PM EST or New York time with Shelly Terrell. TESOL Lectures are open to the public, so feel free to invite a friend. To enter a TESOL Webinar, click here https://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/. Next, click Enter as a Guest, type your name, and click Enter Room.