Use the World Cup to teach multicultural connections:
- South Africa has had its share of trials and tribulations which has lead to many different impressions and stereotypes. Talk with your child about what he/she knows about South Africa. If your child is too young to have any specific associations, then talk about some basic differences and similarities between South African language and culture and your child’s languages and cultures.
- Go to the Photos page on the FIFA site (www.fifa.com/worldcup/photo/index.html) and talk about the range of different people seen there. Talk about what they look like, their expressions, what they are wearing, etc. Talk about what characteristics are different, which are the same, where each may live and anything else that springs up in the conversation.
- Check out the South Africa from A-Z page (www.fifa.com/worldcup/destination/southafricafromatoz/index.html) and talk about each of the topics in your language. What do each of the words mean? Why are they uniquely associated with South Africa?
Hands-On Resources:
- SunderlandSchool.org has some fabulous resouces about the World Cup 2010 (and 2006). It is all in English but it will give you a ton of ideas (or just use them in English and discuss in your language): www.sunderlandschools.org/international/resources-worldcup2010.htm
- Also from the SunderlandSchools.org are the names of the participating countries in French, Spanish, German and Italian: www.sunderlandschools.org/international/resources/teams in langs.doc
- TeacherPlanet.com also has some great resources (many will redirect you to other sites). They are also in English but you can use them as templates for making your own in your language or you can see what you can do to use them while speaking and writing in your language: www.teacherplanet.com/resource/worldcup.php
- This is a United Kingdom site with a bunch of links with lesson ideas and plans: www.teachingideas.co.uk/themes/worldcup/
- Here is a page from a geography lesson focused on the World Cup: www.geography.org.uk/download/GA_AfricaInfo8.pdf
With all of this information and resources, you will be able to spend the whole World Cup 2010 having fun while learning about the world - and all done in your language. What could be better? Let me know how it goes!
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Do you have additional sites that you’d like to recommend? Do you have some favorite World Cup 2010 sites which are specifically in your language? Can you recommend some additional activities which focus on the World Cup 2010 theme?
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- TIP: Find South Africa in the atlas and talk about how far each team had to travel to get there.
- TIP: Talk a bit about things unique to each country in the FIFA list: language, terrain, foods, climate, products manufactured, etc.
- TIP: Ask you child if he/she knows any other people from each of the countries.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Corey, Love this post! We don’t follow international soccer much either but we do plan to watch the World Cup and we’ll definitely check out your suggestions for learning more about South Africa and the other countries participating. Thanks!
Yes, being that it is in South Africa really adds a whole new element which I’m really excited about. Such a great excuse to learn even more about the country and people. Thank you for your post and comment here if you have some more suggestions and ideas. There have been some great ones on the Facebok page. So fun!
These are great ideas and great links! Thanks for sharing them.
Susan
Thank you for your comment, Susan! It is nice to know that people might be benefiting from them. My kids and I have been having a good time referring to them while the World Cup is on. So fun to learn the flags, in particular.
Thanks for a great article & great suggestions re: teaching opportunities. Being a non-native french speaker & a die-hard soccer fan, watching “le coupe du monde” with my toddler has forced me to learn all the football terminology in french, so that I can give her a blow-by-blow account of the matches.
Sefa, that is fabulous! I love it when our children’s multilingualism improves our multilingualism! The absolute best of both worlds. I also love it when my kids teach me terms in German. I have to ask them a lot when it comes to Fussball and they so enjoy being the experts.
By the way, I love your blog! Can I add it to this site’s links? Always fabulous to find blogs in another language that focus on raising bilingual children! Fabulous!
Thanks for the kind words about my blog. You may absolutely add it to this site’s links! It would have been so much easier to do the blog in English, but it forces me to maintain my written French and keep up with the evolution of the language – all very useful for “living” the language with my daughter versus “teaching” it.
Hi Corey, Although I suspect “our” team (the Dutch) will go out today (against Brazil), this is a great resource. And one which could be easily adapted for eg the olympics. Our response to the world cup was to seek out picture books based in South Africa – http://www.playingbythebook.net/2010/06/10/catching-south-african-fever/
I didn’t find any books feature bi/multilingualism, although of course it is common in SA.
Zoe @ Playing by the book´s last [type] ..Polly and the North Star
Thank you for some other wonderful article. The place else could anyone get that kind of information in such an ideal approach of writing? I have a presentation subsequent week, and I’m at the look for such info.