This Week: Taking a knee

Introduction

Laura: Hello my name’s Laura and welcome to our weekly round-up section called ‘This Week’ on Premier Skills English.

Rich: Hi there. I’m Rich. We’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

Jack: And I’m Jack and we hope you are all staying well whether you are staying home or still going to work.

Laura: We’ve looked high and low for three news stories that we want to share with you.

Rich: This week, we are going to focus on the Black Lives Matter movement and how Premier League clubs and players have been showing their support.

Jack: We have chosen these stories because they are topical and also so we can focus on some useful bits of vocabulary that have been in the news a lot over the past week.

Laura: And we want you to use and practise these words and phrases by interacting with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Rich: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, you can leave your comments in the review section. We do read all the reviews and would love to hear from you.

Jack: You can find all our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Laura: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Rich: Our latest podcast is called Modas of deduction: Who stole the oranges? 

Jack: In the roleplay, there is a theft at our local football club. The only person who can solve the crime is Geoff, the groundsman, who is a part-time detective.

Laura: We look at lots of different modal verbs to express different levels of certainty. You can find the lesson on the homepage on the Premier Skills English webs. 

Rich: You’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we’ll have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: to take a knee, movement, solidarity, protest, justice, to speak out. 

Jack: After the headlines, we’ll have another fitness challenge and a language challenge for you to have a go at.

Headline 1

Rich: Premier League clubs take a knee.

Jack: Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester City and Newcastle Utd are some of the clubs that have taken a knee at the start of training sessions to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement has been the focal point for the protests that have taken place across the USA and in many cities across the world following the death of George Floyd.

Laura: This story has been dominating the news in many countries and is something that many in the sports world are supporting, too.

Rich: I think it’s something that is very important to support and to take action where possible. Many players and sports teams have been taking a knee. 

Jack: To take a knee is a phrase that is used to describe the act of kneeling on one knee as an act of protest, especially when most other people are standing.

Laura: This act of protest became more famous when it was used by Colin Kaepernick in American football. He would take a knee while the national anthem was played to protest against racism.

Rich: The other bit of vocabulary we want to take a look at here is a movement. In the headline, we spoke about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Jack: A movement in its most common meaning describes something that moves from one position to another. 

Laura: Another meaning of movement is to describe an organisation or a group of people who share the same aims and want to work together to achieve those aims.

Rich: We can talk about the peace movement, the civil rights movement or the trade union movement. The people in these groups wanted to achieve the same things.

Jack: The people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement want to achieve the same thing. They are fighting for freedom, liberation and justice for black communities.

Rich: Let’s move on to our next headline.

Headline 2

Laura: Players show solidarity and support.

Rich: Many Premier League players have been speaking out about racism. Manchester’s City’s Raheem Sterling and Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford are amongst players to send out powerful anti-racism messages and Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings joined one protest in Birmingham.

Jack: That Premier League players are using their positions as role models with millions of fans has got to be a good thing. 

Laura: Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings said he joined the protests because he was standing up for what he believes in. That’s a good phrase to stand up for what you believe in.

Rich: To stand up for something means to defend something that is being attacked or criticised. You can stand up for your rights, stand up for yourself or others and stand up for what you believe in. Let’s look at another couple of words from the headline.

Jack: We said that players are showing solidarity. To show solidarity means to show support to another person or group of people.

Laura: Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta has shown solidarity by saying that we have to eradicate racism and everybody has to play a part.

Rich: Tyrone Mings joined a protest. A protest can be a verb or a noun. A protest can be an action or a statement which expresses dislike of something. A protest can be many people in the streets like what we have seen this week or can be one person taking a knee.

Jack: It can also be a verb. We can all protest against racism.

Laura: Let’s move on to our final headline.

Headline 3

Jack: Applause not punishment for showing support. 

Laura: FIFA President Gianni Infantino has announced that common sense should prevail after England’s Jadon Sancho was given a yellow card for removing his shirt to reveal a ‘justice for George Floyd message’. The Borussia Dortmund winger had just completed his first-ever professional hat-trick but said afterwards that there were more important things in the world today and shouldn’t fear speaking out for what is right.

Rich: I think using common sense is a good thing in this situation. If you’re not sure, common sense is the ability to think about things in a practical way and make sensible decisions. Common sense was something that my mum said I never had!

Jack: Yes, common sense is often a good thing that too few people have sometimes. Let’s look at another couple of words from that headline. Jadon Sancho’s t-shirt said ‘justice for George Floyd’.

Laura: When we talk about justice we are talking about the fair treatment of people - often when their treatment is not or has not been fair.

Rich: We can seek justice and fight for justice for individuals or groups of people. We often talk about social justice and people often want to bring others to justice if we feel they have avoided justice.

Jack: The final phrase we want to look at this week is to speak out. Jadon Sancho said we shouldn’t be afraid to speak out for what is right.

Laura: To speak out is a phrasal verb and means to talk about something publicly that often takes courage or bravery.

Rich: Many people, including footballers, have been speaking out about racism in the past few weeks.

Laura: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: to take a knee, movement, solidarity, protest, justice, to speak out. 

Jack: Have a listen to the headlines again and see if you understand the vocabulary we’ve looked at. 

TASK - Fitness Challenge

Rich: Each week we’re trying to set you a fitness challenge and this week’s challenge comes from Chelsea football club.

Laura: The exercises this week are for kids so if you’ve got children in your house have a look at the video and get them involved.

Jack: The exercises are fun but it’s still a good work out for adults too. I can promise you that it’s not child’s play!

Rich: There are squats, jumps and runs and some ball work too.

Laura: The link to the video is on the lesson page for this podcast on the Premier Skills English website. Let us know if you or anyone in your house does the exercises in the comments section.

Language Challenge

Jack: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Rich: Earlier we used the phrasal verb to speak out. To speak out about something which means to speak publicly about something with courage. 

Laura: There are plenty of phrasal verbs with the word speak. We are going to give you three sentences and we want you to complete the sentence with the missing word.

Jack: What did you say? No, I can’t hear you. Can you speak ____ a bit?

Rich: I’m not only speaking ____ myself when I say racism is something that everyone should fight against.

Laura: I’ve had to speak ____ him a few times about his punctuality.

Jack: We want you to write the correct answers on the Premier Skills English website where we have some more questions and activities connected to this week’s show for you.

Rich: Or write your answer on Apple Podcasts if that’s where you listen to us. Just write the answers in the review section and say hi.

Laura: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope that all of you stay fit and healthy and we’ll be back watching Premier League football very soon.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.