Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Catch that commentary!

15 minutes

Find Out: Verbs for the past, present and future

25 minutes

Take Action: Creating commentary

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

learn about verbs and verb tenses used in the context of the Commonwealth Games
explore sports commentary, including its purpose and the conventions of language used in sports commentary.

Success criteria

Students can:

identify examples of verbs in past, present and future tense in sports commentary
apply correct verb tense in creating and delivering spoken text
write a short sports commentary script for a Commonwealth Games event.

Tune In: Catch that commentary!

Step 1

Introduce the topic by watching the following videos with your students. Invite students to reflect on what is happening in each video. Ask students to think about how they know what is happening in each video and guide students to focus on what they are listening to in each video.

Video 1 shows a tense tie between Australia and Jamaica as they battle for the win in netball. The video will take you to the correct timestamp (stop at 2:00).

CWG: Jamaica v Australia | Netball (Gold Medal Match) | SportsMax TV -(youtube.com/watch?v=yWLTjQoOGh8&t=3811s)

Video 2 is of a men’s 100m final at the 2022 Birmingham Games. The video will take you to the correct timestamp (stop it after the race concludes).

Men’s 100m Final | Commonwealth Games 2022 | Birmingham | Highlights -(youtube.com/watch?v=0LQBsgvnbQo&t=326s)

Step 2

Invite students to reflect on the videos. Iterate to students that they listened to a man and a woman talking about what was happening in each race or competition in both videos.

Step 3

Introduce the terms ‘commentary’ and ‘commentator’ to students. Commentary is when someone talks about what is happening during an event, such as a sports game, to help people understand and enjoy it more. A commentator is a person who gives commentary, which is usually a conversation about the players and their actions.

Step 4

Select 1 of the videos to watch again with your class and ask students to remember 2 things the commentators say. After the video ends, ask volunteers to share what they heard the commentators say.

Step 5

Lead a class discussion using the following prompts:

How did the voice of the commentators make you feel (eg excited, nervous, hopeful for 1 side or athlete)?
Did you feel excited to find out who wins? Why? (eg the noise, music, and sound of the crowd, the commentator saying exclamations like “Wow!” and “Oof!”)
How did you know when the race was over or a point was scored? (eg did the commentator’s voice change? Did it get louder or quieter, faster or slower?)
What does the commentary add to the audience’s experience of this event? ( eg it helps us to know what happened, it tells us about the athletes, it makes the event more exciting.)

Find Out: Verbs for the past, present and future

Step 1

Using the Student Worksheet, read the list of phrases to the class. Explain to students that these phrases have been taken from the commentary of the men’s 100m final at the Birmingham Games 2022. Outline to students that they are going to watch the video again. Your students’ task is to listen carefully and put a tick next to phrases when they hear them.

The video will take you to the correct timestamp stop it after the race concludes.

Men’s 100m Final | Commonwealth Games 2022 | Birmingham | Highlights -(youtube.com/watch?v=0LQBsgvnbQo&t=326s)

Step 2

Explain to students what a verb is and describe how a verb relates to an action. In this case, an example could be ‘she bounces the ball’, and ‘he ran forward’. Verbs can relate to actions in the past, present or future. Share the examples below with your students:

He won in Tokyo. (past)
He wins the race! (present)
He will race again tomorrow. (future)

Invite students to revisit the list of phrases on the Student Worksheet and identify which words are verbs in each phrase by highlighting or underlining every verb.

Step 3

Your students’ task is to sort the verbs into 3 tense categories that relate to an event or activity that is in the past, present, or future.

Literacy extension: Teach students about adverbs, which are words that modify (or describe) a verb. You can link adverbs to the commentary heard in the videos. For example, ‘She jumped up quickly’.

Step 4

Allocate students into pairs and ask them to compare their Student Worksheets. Invite students to check if they placed the same word or verb in different tenses. Ask them to count how many verbs are in each column, and report back to the class which tense (past, present or future) represented the most verbs.

Explain to students that most verbs will be in the present tense because the commentators are describing the action that is happening at the same time it is occurring.

Literacy extension: In pairs, students look at words in the past and present verb tense and write in what the future of this verb might be. For example, if the phrase is ‘Kenya wins’ students could modify this to be ‘Kenya will win’.

Take Action: Creating commentary

Step 1

Please write the list below of sports featured in the Commonwealth Games on a whiteboard and invite students to select a sport that interests them.

athletics & para-athletics
badminton
basketball 3x3 & wheelchair basketball 3x3
beach volleyball
bowls & para-bowls
boxing
cricket
cycling & para-cycling
diving
golf
gymnastics
hockey
netball
para-powerlifting
rowing
rugby 7s
shooting
squash
swimming & para-swimming
table tennis & para-table tennis
triathlon & para-triathlon
weightlifting.

Step 2

Your students’ task is to write commentary for a 30-second video of this sport. You may like to set students a target for using past, present, and future tense verbs in their commentary. Using a tablet or laptop device, students can record their commentary to play along with the video for their peers.

Learning support: Provide students with a list of verbs they can use in their commentary.

Literacy extension: Explore the roles of the 2 commentators in the Find Out videos. Ask students to respond to the following questions:

Why are there 2 commentators?
What does each person specialise in?
What is the purpose of the 2-person format? Usually, 1 describes the action and the other provides contextual information, such as comments about athletes’ past performance and future hopes. This second role is sometimes called colour commentary.

Step 3

Invite students to share their commentary examples with the class by playing the audio file and displaying the video for students.

Reflection

Ask the students: How does the commentary make it feel like we are actually there?

Clever Commentary

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Summary

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