The bracket

The objective

To make predictions of football championships such as World Cup, European Cup or National Cup

The language

Will for predictions: I think they´ll win the next match

Going to for predictions: They are going to win the match.

Present continuous: They are winning the championship.

Conditionals (all types): If they win, they´ll move on to the next round. If they won, they would move on to the next round. If they had won, they would have moved on to the next round.

The set-up

If you know there´s a championship on and that students (or the majority of students) are interested in football, then print out a bracket for an upcoming championship from the internet. Make sure you have a good idea of who´s in the championship and what the championship rules are.

The low-down

Show students the bracket and tell them that they are going to work in pairs or groups to predict the winners of the championship. Ask them to predict the winner and the score for each match.

Now what?

Ask each pair/group to present their bracket, starting with the four teams who will play the semi-final and explaining why, then finishing with who will be the winner and why. This is not meant to be a repeat of the activity but a general explanation of who they think is the best and why. Ask them to save their brackets and see who successfully predicted the winners.

Time to teach

You can work on, during or after the activity, any of the above grammar. In addition, consider the amount of football-related vocabulary which may turn up--positions of players, action verbs and ways of describing the brackets. I suggest you think through some of these things. Remember: when teaching vocabulary in this or any lesson, leave as much translation as possible to the students themselves and make sure to record all new words for later vocabulary review.

More talk-time

(Questions here are going to depend on your level of football knowledge)

Which team do you support?

Do you think they´ll make it all the way to the championships? Why?

Who´s their most valuable player? Why?

In a match between team X and team Y, who would win? Why?