Enjoy the Olympics from Home

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Hello, welcome to another ABA English class. I’m teacher Robin, and today I’m going to talk to you about the Olympics. So the Olympics are coming soon and we can all watch from our homes. So I want to give you some vocabulary related to the Olympics, as well as some tips if you want to throw a watching party, at your house or together with friends. So I’m going to give you some tips for that, as well as some fun facts about the Olympics.

So you may know that the Olympics were actually postponed or rescheduled. So the date was moved because of the pandemic, because of Coronavirus. So they were supposed to take place last year, 2020. But they were postponed to this year. So they will take place on the 23rd of July to the eighth of August. So coming very soon. All right, the location this time is Tokyo, Japan. This is actually the second time that Tokyo has hosted the Olympics. Now the difference this year this time is that no audience or spectators are allowed at the events. So this is the first time. This is very different because normally thousands of people attend the Olympics. It’s a very exciting time. This year only the people that, the athletes that are competing, will be able to go. So this is even more reason to watch from home with your friends with your family and enjoy the Olympics together if you cannot attend.

Okay, a few facts about the Summer Olympics because you probably know that we have the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics, and they take place every four years. Okay, so in this case, every five because it was postponed. So at this year’s summer Olympics, there are 33 sports that are represented and 50 disciplines. So within a sport, you have different disciplines, for example, in swimming, you have different types of swimming, you have freestyle, you have breaststroke, and in running you have different distances. So those are disciplines. So there are 33 sports, and 50 different disciplines, so a category within the sport. And there are actually some new sports being represented at the Olympics this year. So these are surfing, climbing, skateboarding, baseball and karate. Now, a couple of these have been an Olympic sports in the past, then they were taken away and now they’re back. Alright, so some exciting new sports to watch this year. Okay, and 15 new disciplines, so 15 new categories within these sports are going to be at the Summer Olympics.

Okay, so you may know the goal of participating in the Olympics is to win. So there are three different prizes that are given to teams or to individual athletes. We have first place is the gold medal, second place is the silver and third place is the bronze. Okay, so you may have seen these colors before the different colors of the medals. Now one special thing about this year’s Olympics is that the medals were made from recycled electronic materials donated by Japanese citizens. So this could be an old cell phone, something like that. People have donated these, and they have recycled them into these medals. So it’s a sustainable practice to do this, which is friendly to the environment. So this is really exciting.

Okay, as you may know, the Olympics starts with the opening ceremony before any sporting events take place. We have this opening ceremony. So the opening ceremony features all of the athletes, so the people who are participating in the Olympics, who are representing their countries. There is a parade of athletes, so they all come out onto the field where this is taking place, in this the stadium. And there is also the lighting of the Olympic flame. So there is an Olympic, excuse me, there’s an Olympic torch, this is like a fire, a torch. So, this is like the base that holds the fire. This is passed from the previous country now to Japan to Tokyo. So, with this torch, they light the Olympic flame and the flame will be burning throughout the Olympic Games. Alright. So once the opening ceremony is finished, then the games can actually start.

Okay. So we have different athletes, as I said, these people competing. So to compete is to play your sport in these different events, and these players or these athletes are representing their country. So each country has their set of athletes who represent them. So your nationality is the country that you come from. Alright, so what are some goals? Like I said, I talked about the medals, you want to win a gold medal, silver medal or bronze medal. And some athletes might aim to break a world record. So this is the fastest time or the heaviest weight, or the longest distance etc. So these are a world record, which means the very best in your category. So maybe we will see some athletes break world records.

And the most important part of the Olympics is to have good sportsmanship. So sportsmanship is when you respect your teammates and people from the other team. So we want a good game, a fair game, competition, etc. And everyone respects each other. So that’s good sportsmanship. And that’s very important.

So now that we’ve talked about some Olympics vocabulary, I want to give you some ideas, in case you want to throw an Olympics watching party at your home or together with a group of friends. Okay, so I’m going to give you some ideas for the food, the decorations, and some games that you can play together to make it more fun.

Okay, the food. So now everyone will probably be supporting their country, or you might be supporting a specific athlete in general. So you might want to have different foods that are the colors of your team, your country’s flag. So for example, I’m American, I’m from the United States, and my flag is red, white, and blue. So I’m wearing a T-shirt that is red, white, and blue. So you might want to wear those colors, and maybe have some foods in those colors. So for example, red, I could have strawberries, blue, I could have blueberries, etc. So you can have different kinds of red, peppers, or blue, you know different kinds of foods that represent the colors of your team’s flag. And that’s fine to be creative about. So that’s one idea that you could do with the food. You could also decorate things like cupcakes or appetizers and the colors of your flag or even add a little paper flag on a toothpick or something like that. So that’s a fun idea for the food.

You can also, for the decorations, if you want to decorate your house with the flag or the different colors of the flag, balloons. You can even make a paper torch, remember the torch is what holds the fire, the flame. So you can make that out of paper, you can be creative with that. You could make t-shirts to wear supporting your team or an athlete that you support. Or if you have a T-shirt already supporting a team or with your country’s flag then you could wear that and you can also make the symbol of the Olympics or the Olympic rings. So these are rings that interlock, okay, in different colors. You can make those for example with paper plates. You need blue, yellow, black, green, and red. So you need those colors and you can make them into an Olympic ring to decorate your house, for example.

And now a few games that you can play. So what’s fun about the Olympics is creating some competition yourself with your friends. You can guess who’s going to win, which country or which athletes specifically. And you can also make predictions or guess specific times, like if it’s swimming, what is the time going to be? If it’s weightlifting, how much weight? Things like that, a distance or score, what will the score be for a game. So those are some fun games that you can play together, you could even create, like a bingo board. So you know, when you play bingo, you have crosses here, and you have to, you have to choose the different, you can make up different categories. Like, if you watch a swimming event, then you can check that off. If you guess something correctly, then you can check that off as well. So something like that, a bingo game, you can make it fun with your friends. And then you could maybe create some prizes for whoever wins in gold, silver, or bronze, for example, if you want.

Okay, so I hope that this class has been useful for you. Some Olympics vocabulary you maybe didn’t know and some ideas to celebrate together with your friends and family. So however you are watching the Olympic Games, I hope it’s great. And I want you to tell me in the comments, who are you rooting for? So to root for means to support a team. So which country team or which athlete are you rooting for? So maybe you support an athlete that’s not from your country, but you like them a lot and you follow them, so you might be supporting that person. And what is your favorite Olympic sport? As I mentioned for the Summer Olympics, there are 33 so which one is your favorite? I particularly, I like diving, I particularly enjoy diving and gymnastics. So which ones do you like? Okay, so tell me in the comments and have a great week. Thanks again for joining and I’ll see you next time. Bye!