Barça vs Real Madrid.
That's what threatens to mess up next Monday evening's lesson. A class full of "madridistas" means that from 9pm there will be little, if any, concentration in our classroom. One or two have decided not to come to class, others have suggested a kind of Christmas radio party where we listen to the match in the background whilst singing Christmas carols (yes, that was really a suggestion made by one of the students!). If we could get the match in English I wouldn't mind, but I don't think that's going to be possible. Anyway, as we were originally going to be looking at verbs followed by the gerund or the infinitive, I decided to make up a dialogue about football in which lots of these forms were used. You will find the end result below. I tried to make it sound natural whilst including an inappropriate number of gerunds and infinitives! After getting the students to concentrate for ten minutes (before the match starts) and look for the verbs, we will practise the dialogues in pairs. I am hoping that this will be fun...
Watching the match
John: Alright mate! How’s it going?
Tom: Not bad, John. I think we’ll win this game.
John: Yeah, I hope so. Do you want a drink?
Tom: Just a coke, please. I don’t feel like drinking tonight. Anyway, I’ve got to finish studying for
Wednesday’s exam later.
John: Oh right. I love having a beer watching the footy. Don’t you
miss drinking when everyone else is having one?
Tom: Sometimes, yeah. Oy! Penalty!........
Nice one! We’ll score from this.
John: Yeah, Ronaldo’s been practising taking penalties all week.
Both: Goooooooooaaaaaaaaallllllllll!
Tom: Anyway, fancy coming to the match on Saturday? I’m taking
the kids.
John: No, I’d like to but I can’t afford to go. My brother suggested
going and he offered to get the tickets but I refused to accept
them. He’s not working at the moment.
Tom: Well, if you change your mind, I don’t mind giving you a lift.
John: Cheers. Hey! That’s not a red card! He was diving! He can’t deny cheating there!
Tom: Oh I know. They just can’t help cheating, can they?
John: Well, I still don’t think they’ll avoid being relegated at the end of the season.
Tom: No, they certainly deserve it.
