The FA Cup Final will see Manchester City play Watford on Saturday! Who do you think will lift the coveted trophy? With all the excitement over the big match, this week is a great time to teach football vocabulary and use the theme of football to practice the English language.
There are so many football phrases that students can learn to help them enjoy watching the game on English TV. Teachers can use the matches to create fun FA Cup EFL lesson plans for speaking, listening, reading and writing exercises.
There are many collocations distinct to football, so the FA Cup Final is a great opportunity to get students enjoying an exciting footy-themed EFL lesson.
The FA Cup Final 2019
The FA Cup is an annual knock-out competition in the football league. It is open to all clubs down the level 10 of the English league system with with hundreds of clubs taking part each year. Often you will find a low division club playing a very high level club, which makes for some exciting action!
The Final normally takes place on the Saturday after the Premier League season finishes in May.
Man City play Watford in the FA Cup Final this year. The match will take place at Wembley on Saturday 18th May with the kick-off at 5 pm. Although 3 pm is the traditional staring time, the FA sometimes decide on a later kick-off time to allow more international football fans to watch the match.
This could be extra special for Man City as the club has already won the Premier League title and the Carabao Cup (‘the double’). This means a win in the FA Cup will give them the domestic treble! This will be the first men’s team to achieve the feat (the Arsenal women’s team have won the treble previously).
The FA Cup last year was on the same day as the royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The FA President, Prince William normally presents the FA Cup to the winning team in the Final and will present it this year (he wasn’t there last year, as he was the best man at his brother’s wedding).
Football Collocations
An FA Cup EFL lesson is the ideal way to combine the excitement of this English sporting event with language learning.
Football is full of jargon and special words and phrases to describe certain actions in a football match. Some of the collocations used in football that can be brought into the EFL classroom include:
The double – to win ‘the double’ means a team win both the Premier League title and the FA Cup in the same season.
The treble – to win the ‘treble’ means a team win the Premier League title, the league cup and the FA Cup all in the same season.
To head the ball
To score a goal
To win the match
To win a trophy
To blow the whistle
To take a corner / throw in / goal kick / free kick
To cross the ball
To build a wall
To strike the ball
Football Vocabulary
It is also a fun idea to look at football vocabulary with other meanings in your FA Cup EFL lesson. There are lots of words we use to describe items or activities related to football that can also be used in other contexts. For example:
Net
a football net, a fishing net, the (inter)net
Pass
‘to pass’ in football means to pass the ball but the verb ‘pass’ has many meanings. For example: to pass the ketchup at dinner or to pass on an opportunity (i.e. turn down)
Dribble
to dribble down the wing as a footballer and to dribble as a baby
Cross
‘to cross’ the ball in football, to ‘put a cross’ instead of a tick and ‘to be cross’ (angry) with someone
Corner
to take ‘a corner’ in a football match, or the corner of a room, or to corner someone
Football writing and reading exercises
It would be a good idea to let the students read some football match reports from newspapers in the first half of the FA Cup EFL lesson. This will help them get a feel for the style of writing and phrases commonly used in football reports.
Students can brainstorm typical English phrases heard in football matches, working together in groups and writing them down.
Once they have found a few good words and phrases, they can each create a football match report using as many of the phrases and common football words as they can.
Football speaking exercises
The football commentary or match report can also work well as an English speaking exercise during the FA Cup EFL lesson. Each student can take it in turns to give a short commentary while the class watches a clip from a football match.
As the teacher, you can pre-select a section which includes a goal or two and specific actions, such as a goal kick, a throw in, passes, a header, a tackle, a free kick, a corner, defending using a wall, crossing the ball, dribbling, etc.
Students can then use the football vocabulary they have learned to commentate as the match plays.
Another idea for the FA Cup EFL lesson or for any football themed EFL lesson is for students to interview each other. They can pretend to be football players at the end of the match. This gives students the chance to practice asking questions and answering them using appropriate football vocabulary.
Holding interviews also gives students the opportunity to have some fun with surprise questions – and impersonating famous players!
Football listening exercises
After listening to a few extracts from football match commentaries, students can note down commonly heard phrases. Students can then guess which of these words will come up in a new short piece of radio commentary on a football match.
They can listen out for the words and phrases, marking them off their pre-prepared vocabulary list as they hear them. To make this into a competitive game, the first student to match 5 football phrases wins.
Football bingo
An excellent way to liven up an EFL listening exercise and combine it with writing practice is to use a bingo game.
Different football phrases and words are written on a bingo card, with each student or team of students having a different card. The student or team who ticks off all the phrases first wins the game.
For the upcoming FA Cup matches, EFL bingo cards can contain some players from each team, along with club names, the managers’ names and previous footy heroes from these clubs, in addition to the regular football slang and common phrases.
Did you watch the FA Cup Final?
As a teacher, have you tried a football themed EFL lesson in the past?
Do you have any special ideas for an FA Cup EFL lesson?
As a student, do you have a favourite football-related game for learning English?
Update:
Congratulations to Manchester City who beat Watford 6-0 to win the FA Cup – and the domestic treble!
Attributions
- The FA Cup Trophy at Wembley Stadium by Carlos yo [GFDL or CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons
We used the interviews idea in my language class and the students had a whale of a time (a phrase for your idioms page??) pretending to be their favourite players! This was also a good way to practice past tense with ‘post-match’ interviews.
I’m glad you found the interviews idea useful, Donna! Good idea to use it to practise tenses. I will make a note of ‘whale of a time’ for the idioms page!
Best wishes
Catherine