This Week: #PremierSkillsFC

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.

Rich: We’d like to introduce you to Laura who is joining us this week. Hi Laura.

Laura: Hi Rich. Hi Jack. Hi everyone who is listening. With no Premier League football at the moment we’ve changed the format of This Week a little. 

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

Laura: This week, we talk about e-sports, football managers delivering vegetables and something new from Premier Skills. 

Rich: We have chosen these stories because they are topical and fun but also so we can focus on some interesting bits of vocabulary that we think are useful to learn.

Jack: 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.

Laura: 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.

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

Jack: 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.

Laura: Our latest podcast is called Understanding Grammar: Exceptional Circumstances. In the roleplay, Rich and Jack talk about life under lockdown in the UK and Spain and we talk about a few people who are doing exceptional things.

Jack: You can find the lesson on the homepage on the Premier Skills English website. 

Rich: You’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we will have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: golden goal, to knock out, suspended, team talk, campaign and ball control. .

Laura: After the headlines, we will have another fitness challenge and language challenge for you to have a go at.

Headline 1

Jack: Wolves beat Liverpool to win ePremier League trophy

Rich: Dioga Jota’s Wolves beat Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Liverpool with a golden goal to clinch the first ePL competition. Jota had beaten Dwight McNeil’s Burnley in the first semi-final whereas Alexander-Arnold had knocked out Raheem Sterling’s Manchester City. Alexander-Arnold took the lead when Geroginion Wjnaldum scored with a header but back came Jota, first with an Adama Traore equaliser and then the winner from Raul Jimenez. 

Jack: This esports tournament played on FIFA was really popular.

Laura: Yes, it was. The matches were live on the Premier League’s website and social media pages and also on Sky Sports and the BBC in the UK. Money raised from the tournament goes to charity.

Jack: You can go back and watch all the matches on the Premier League’s YouTube Channel. We’ll put a link to it on the page for this lesson - all the matches have real commentators so it’s good listening practice.

Rich: Let’s look at a couple of words from the headline. The first is golden goal - we don’t hear this phrase much any more.

Laura: The golden goal was a rule that was used in extra-time in cup competitions. Teams played thirty minutes of extra-time but if a team scored they were the winners. The rule was called the golden goal rule and goals scored in this way were known as golden goals.

Rich: It’s not used in most competitions any more but it’s still used in e-sports and FIFA.

Jack: Let’s look at a phrasal verb we used in the headlines. We said that Alexander-Arnold knocked out Raheem Sterling.

Laura: This phrasal verb means to eliminate an opponent from a competition. It’s used a lot in cup competitions.

Rich: You can say things like City knocked United out of the League Cup or England were knocked out in the semi-finals of the World Cup.

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

Headline 2

Laura: Moyes and Mourinho take on new roles

Jack: With Premier League football suspended at the moment two Premier League managers have opted for a career change. West Ham’s David Moyes and Tottenham’s Jose Mourinho have swapped delivering team talks for delivering fruit and vegetables. Both managers have been helping their local communities by packing or delivering food for key workers and vulnerable people.

Laura: This is a great story. I read that Tottenham’s stadium is being used as a food distribution centre and food grown at the club’s training ground is being donated to local people.

Rich: The West Ham manager saw an advert for delivery drivers in a local shop and decided to apply. He got the job.

Jack: And he’s been delivering boxes of fruit and vegetables in his village to people who need them. 

Laura: It’s a good story and a good thing to do - volunteering in your local community. OK, let’s look at a couple of words - we said that Premier League football is suspended.

Rich: To be suspended means to be officially stopped for a period of time. The Premier League has been suspended indefinitely due to the Covid-19 crisis.

Jack: A player can also be suspended if he receives a red card in a match. A player might be suspended - prevented from playing - for one, two, three or even more matches depending on the offence.

Laura: The other phrase we want to look at from this headline is team talk. 

Rich: A team talk is what the manager gives to players before a match or during half-time. The purpose of a team talk is usually to explain tactics to players but also to motivate the players.

Jack: A good team talk can often improve a team’s performance in the second half.

Rich: Let’s move on to our third and final headline.

Headline 3

Jack: Premier Skills launch Premier Skills FC

Laura: The Premier Skills team launched a new campaign last week named Premier Skills FC. We are setting football and fitness challenges to fans young and old on social media and on our new coaches website. Each week there will be weekly challenges from designing a Premier Skills football to testing your ball control. Follow all the action on Facebook or Twitter using the #PremierSkillsFC.

Rich: This is great. We’ve got lots of new content for social media. There will be quizzes to test your football knowledge and resources that people can share with children, too.

Jack: I like it but I’m biased! Have a look at the Premier Skills Twitter feed or Premier Skills Facebook page if you want to get involved.

Laura: Let’s look at a couple of words from that headline. The first is campaign. When it is used as a noun a campaign is a series of activities of some type which has an objective. We said that Premier Skills has launched a new campaign.

Rich: This campaign is a series of connected activities to bring our coaches, fans and listeners together. 

Jack: We also use this word when we are talking about the football season. We can say Liverpool have had a great campaign. 

Laura: The campaign is the football season and the activities are the 38 football fixtures that make up the football season or campaign.

Rich: The final word phrase we’re going to look at this week is ball control. When you play football good ball control is very important. 

Jack: To have control over something describes making something or someone do what you want.

Laura: So ball control is the ability to make the football do what you want it to do. 

Rich: We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words we’ve looked at are: golden goal, to knock out, suspended, team talk, campaign and ball control.

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

Headline 1 

Jack: Wolves beat Liverpool to win ePremier League trophy

Rich: Dioga Jota’s Wolves beat Trent Alexander-Arnold’s Liverpool with a golden goal to clinch the first ePL competition. Jota had beaten Dwight McNeil’s Burnley in the first semi-final whereas Alexander-Arnold had knocked out Raheem Sterling’s Manchester City. Alexander-Arnold took the lead when Geroginion Wjnaldum scored with a header but back came Jota, first with an Adama Traore equaliser and then the winner from Raul Jimenez. 

Headline 2

Laura: Moyes and Mourinho take on new roles

Jack: With Premier League football suspended at the moment two Premier League managers have opted for a career change. West Ham’s David Moyes and Tottenham’s Jose Mourinho have swapped delivering team talks for delivering fruit and vegetables. Both managers have been helping their local communities by packing or delivering food for key workers and vulnerable people.

Headline 3

Jack: Premier Skills launch Premier Skills FC

Laura: The Premier Skills team launched a new campaign last week named Premier Skills FC. We are setting football and fitness challenges to fans young and old on social media and on our new coaches website. Each week there will be weekly challenges from designing a Premier Skills football to testing your ball control. Follow all the action on Facebook or Twitter using the hashtag #PremierSkillsFC.

TASK - Fitness Challenge

Laura: Each week we’re trying to set you a fitness challenge and this week’s challenge comes from West Ham United football club.

Rich: One of West Ham’s Foundation’s Community Hub School Officers, Nicola Waxler has been making workouts which require no equipment and only a little space 

Jack: We’re sharing one of these workouts on the lesson page this week.

Laura: It involves leg raises, plank raises, spidermans and mountain climbers.

Rich: If you want to give it a go or just want to find out what these strange-sounding exercises are, take a look on the lesson page on the Premier Skills English website.

Jack: Let us know if you give it a go in our comments section.

Language Challenge

Laura: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge for you which is connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Rich: Earlier we looked at the phrasal verb to knock out. England was knocked out of the World Cup by Croatia.

Jack: OK, you probably know what knock out means but we want you to see if you know any other phrasal verbs with out. Here are three sentences - do you know the missing word?

Laura: My cooking is improving, now I can’t _____ out in restaurants.

Rich: I can’t wait to _____ out and about again!

Jack: You really need to _______ out the Premier Skills English website. It’s great!

Laura: 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.

Jack: 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 all be back watching Premier League football very soon.

Laura: Bye for now and enjoy your football.