This Week: On the way back

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 talk about Brighton’s new kit, Sergio Aguero teaching and the return of football in Europe.

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

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 Learning Vocabulary: I don’t believe it. In the roleplay, we talk to two people who believe the Earth is flat and afterwards we look at phrases we use when we don’t believe what someone says.

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

Laura: 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: home kit, sponsor, broadcaster, pitch, to be on the way back and goal celebration. 

Rich: After the headlines, we’ll have another fitness challenge and a language challenge for you to have a go at.
Headline 1

Jack: Brighton show their support.

Rich: Brighton & Hove Albion have produced a limited edition home kit which shows their support for health workers in the UK. Brighton have replaced their sponsor with the message ‘Thank you NHS’ and the club have raised over £300,000 so far as part of their wider Albion as One campaign.

Laura: That’s a good idea. I read that lots of people are buying this limited edition home kit.

Jack: A limited-edition home kit. Let’s break this phrase down and explain what it means. Let’s start with limited-edition. If something is a limited-edition it means that only a fixed number of a product has been produced.

Rich: Lots of businesses sell limited-edition products. You might get limited-edition books, albums or t-shirts. When something is limited-edition they are often more expensive because they are seen as more valuable.

Laura: A limited-edition home kit. A kit is the set of clothes that you use for a specific activity. When we are talking about football, we’re talking about a football kit.

Jack: A football kit is a shirt, short and socks.

RIch: Football teams have different kits. They have a kit to play home matches in, a kit to play away matches in and even a third kit in case the colours are too similar to their opponents.

Laura: These kits are called home kits or away kits. In the headline, we spoke about Brighton’s limited-edition home kit.

Jack: On this limited-edition home kit, Brighton have replaced their sponsor with a message for health workers. 

Rich: A sponsor is a company which agrees to pay some money and in return, they are able to advertise their business in some way.

Laura: A company might agree to sponsor a football club for a certain amount of money and in return, they have their company name connected to the club.

Jack: A football club’s biggest sponsor often has its name on the front of the team’s shirts. Let’s move on to our next headline.

Rich: Sergio Aguero helping kids learn the lingo.

Laura: Manchester CIty’s Sergio Aguero has swapped the pitch for the classroom and is helping kids in the UK with their Spanish skills. The Argentinian striker is working with the BBC as part of the broadcaster’s online learning programme for children studying from home.

Jack: Rich, you live in Spain, you could have helped with this.

Rich: Let’s think for a minute. The BBC are looking for a well known Spanish speaking celebrity for their new programme. Who could they turn to?

Laura: Yes, I think they are better off with Sergio! It’s great that he’s helping kids with languages. I really think people in the UK should learn more languages.

Jack: I sometimes think we all think everyone else will learn English. We also did our bit on Premier Skills last week.

Rich: Ah yes, the Premier Skills international challenge. Lots of Premier Skills coaches from around the world showing off their football skills and counting in different languages.

Laura: I liked it and if you haven’t seen it, there is a link to it on the page for this lesson on the Premier Skills English website or you can find it on the Premier Skills - British Council Facebook page.

Jack: There were a couple of football words to remember in the headline. The first is pitch. 

Rich: The pitch is where we play football. The football pitch. It’s a general word for other sports too. You can have a football pitch, a rugby pitch or a hockey pitch. 

Laura: We usually use pitch for team sports that are played outside on the grass.

Jack: In American English, you might hear soccer field. That is the same as football pitch. A football field would be for American football.

Rich: The other word is broadcaster. A broadcaster is a company that sends out TV or radio programmes. The BBC is a TV broadcaster in the UK.

Jack: We often hear about broadcasters winning the rights to broadcast Premier League football. Let’s look at our final headline.

Laura: Glad to be back.

Jack: In a sign that Premier League football is on its way back, football returned to Germany at the weekend. There were no crowds, substitutes wore masks and goal celebrations consisted of elbow bumps and lots of social distancing. Football is back but it’s different.

Rich: Yes, I don’t usually watch German football but I watched Borussia Monchengladbach at the weekend to see what matches might be like when the Premier League returns.

Laura: And what was it like? 

Rich: I watched Borussia Monchengladbach win 3-1. It was great to watch live football but it was a bit strange. You could hear all the manager’s instructions. He was the only person shouting.

Jack: Let’s look at some language. I said that football is on its way back. This phrase to be on its way back means returning. Football is on its way back after a long break.

Laura: We can often use the phrase to say we did something as we are returning. We might say things like I went to the shops on my way back home or I saw a friend on my way back.

Rich: The other phrase we want to look at is goal celebration. A goal celebration is the way a player celebrates after scoring a goal. 

Jack: We usually see players jumping on each other and hugging each other after a goal. Goal celebrations might be a little different for a while. 

Laura: Rich said players were celebrating by touching elbows at the weekend. That might be something we see a lot of in the next few months.

Rich: OK We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words we’ve looked at are: home kit, sponsor, broadcaster, pitch, to be on the way back and goal celebration.

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

TASK - Fitness Challenge

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

Rich: It’s a 20-minute workout that you can do at home and you don’t need any equipment.

Jack: As well as doing the exercises, there is an added bonus - an interview with the Chelsea midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek. The England international talks about staying fit and healthy at home and cooking.

Laura: I’d day this is a medium level fitness challenge. 

Rich: The link to the video is on the lesson page for this podcast on the Premier Skills English website. Let us know if you do 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.

Laura: Earlier we spoke about the word pitch. We play football on a football pitch but what about other sports? Here are three sentences. Can you complete each sentence?

Rich: Have you seen The Last Dance? It’s great to see Michael Jordan on a basketball _______ again?

Jack: The golf _______ near me is open again. I might go for a game tomorrow.

Laura: I love ice-hockey. It’s quite dangerous if the puck flies out of the ______ though!

Rich: 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.

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

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.