Implementation of “Sustainable Sport” (SOI-HR-294)

Author: Mirjana Jerković, English teacher

School/Organization: Primary school “Tin Ujević” Osijek (OŠ “Tin Ujević” Osijek)

The learning scenario “Sustainable sport” (LS-IT-635 -https://teachwitheuropeana.eun.org/learning-scenarios/sustainable-sport-ls-it) was used as a starting point for this story of implementation for several reasons:

a) sport is presented as means of promoting tolerance, respecting your opponents, taking care of your own health and promoting peace and inclusion as well;

b) I wanted to show that young learners can talk and think critically about this and similar topics if they are adapted to their age and comprehension level;

c) it was a great opportunity to celebrate April 6, the “International Day of Sport for Development and Peace”.

The implementation context

Improving foreign language and 21st century skills through sports

This learning scenario gave me an idea how to make my students aware of the fact that sport is extremely important in their lives and sports can be done in other subjects as well, not only in PE.

Furthermore, students were able to improve their speaking and reading skills in English. They could also broaden their knowledge about various sports and sportspeople who inspired many with their sports results and way of life.

Finally, the 21st century skills were developed and improved since the scenario involved students’ critical thinking and communication skills (students discussed about sports as means of tolerance, gender equality and inclusion), collaboration skills (students worked in groups in order to complete most of the tasks) and information management and digital literacy skills (students scanned the texts, chose the appropriate information and presented it to the rest of the class; they used different digital tools and platforms like Mentimeter, Padlet, Microsoft Teams, Europeana platform and QR code reader).

The story was implemented on April 5 with the whole class of fifth-grade-students (25 students aged 11) during their 3 English classes of 45 minutes. The involved students were not familiar with Europeana platform and its resources before these lessons.

The narrative

The learning process had two parts: indoor and outdoor learning and it lasted 3 x 45min. More

detailed lesson plan is provided: Europeana Story of Implementation – Sports.docx

Indoor learning: Why is sport important and heroes of the Olympic Games

– As a warm-up activity students wrote their name on the post-it note and put it on the feeling

board according to the way they felt at the beginning of the lesson: SUNNY, CLOUDY, RAINY. The

same was done at the end of the lesson (most students changed the way they felt).

The photos show pupils’ names on the feeling board at the beginning of the lesson: sunny (feeling great), cloudy (feeling moody) and rainy (feeling bad).

After the topic was introduced, students answered the question: What do sport and development and peace have in common? Students came up with interesting answers. Teacher announced what was celebrated on April 6.

– Students went to Mentimeter and answered questions (both questions and answers can be seen below): Sport mentimeter.pdf

– Group work & Europeana Platform

Teacher briefly introduced Europeana and the task: in 6 groups (because there are 6 articles) students clicked the given links about the heroes of the Olympic Games:  https://www.europeana.eu/en/exhibitions/heroes-of-the-olympic-games, went through their specific article and wrote the answers on the first 2 questions on Padlet: Padlet.pdf The 3rd question was done orally in the class. (15 min for the task). Given questions can be seen in Padlet.

– Group work reflexion (25min) https://padlet.com/mikica139/sport-is-sustainable-u8lfkn22xjebrkcv

Outdoor learning: QR code hunt  (peer and collaborative learning)

Pupils were regrouped: a new group consisted of 6 students, each of them from different group in the previous task. In that way each student wass important for the whole group because he/she had the information about their article.

– Groups were given the task: they had to find 6 QR codes (previously hidden around the school playground), scan them and answer the questions

– The answers were checked and the winning group(s) announced

Outdoor learning: sport challenges (station learning)

– Sport challenges (20 min): in groups students switched stations, read the instructions, did the task and wrote their score on the paper.

Stations involved the following activities: skipping the rope, juggling the ball, standing long jump, push-ups, sit-ups, passing the ball (volleyball style)

The photos show pupils involved in sport challenges:

– At the end of the lesson I used the exit ticket (3 things they learned today, 2 things that surprised them and 1 thing they would like to know more about) –  the answers can be seen on Padlet.pdf   

– The warm up activity from the beginning was repeated at the end to check if the activities brought some positive changes; students could as well leave their names on the initial position if their mood didn’t change.

Photo shows the feeling board at the end of the lesson; most students’ mood was improved       

Learning outcomes

Benefits of using Europeana resources in the classroom:

  • Students improved their reading and speaking in English.
  • Students improved their language and critical thinking skills by finding out that sport is a great tool for promoting tolerance, peace and gender equality.
  • Students acquired new vocabulary related to sports.
  • They broadened their prior acquired knowledge about the importance of sport.
  • They learnt how to use Europeana as a resource engine.
  • They strengthened their digital skills using different digital tools – Mentimeter, Padlet, Teams, QR code reader.
  • Through collaboration students strenghtened their team spirit,  improved their social skills and self-confidence.
  • Taking part in sport challenges students were motivated to take up some kind of physical activity in their free time.
  • They had fun and were physically active while learning. They increased the motivation for language learning.

Some pupils’ comments:

˝It is fun to do something out of the classroom and to get some exercise as well. We should do these things more often.“

“ English class can be fun.”

“Sport is very important”

“I was surprised that the girls did more than 20 push ups ”

“I didn’t know that sport can be soo fun”

“I learned how to do push-ups correctly ” On Padlet in groups sections students wrote the vocabulary related to sports from the articles each group was responsible for. In the exit ticket section you can see more comments: https://padlet.com/mikica139/sport-is-sustainable-u8lfkn22xjebrkcv

Outcomes for the educator

Teacher’s remarks

As stated previously, adjusting and implementing this learning scenario was pretty challenging for me since my students were younger than the age group intended in the scenario. The content and vocabulary used in the scenario had to be adapted for my students’ language and comprehension level as well.

Even though the level of my students’ language skills did not correspond to the given Europeana resources, my intention was to challenge and improve their language and critical thinking skills and broaden their prior acquired knowledge. I combined indoor and outdoor learning because I wanted to prove that digital tools and physical activity can be successfully combined during the lesson.  

As expected, the students managed to comprehend the articles used in these lessons on the global level. Applying the collaborative learning method students strenghtened their team spirit,  improved their social, language skills and self-confidence. However, the most important was that both students and teacher had fun; students enjoyed the outdoor activities (QR code hunt and sport challenge) and their motivation for language learning increased. Having used Europeana resources and adapted the above mentioned learning scenario the teacher thought ouside the box and upgraded her teaching methods.

Did find this story of implementation interesting? Why don’t you read about the related learning scenario? “Sustainable sport” (LS-IT-635) created by Sandra Troia

Did you find this story of implementation interesting? You might also like: 

Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.

CC0 1.0: featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Estonian Sports and Olympic Museum.

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