Wednesday, December 7, 2022

World Cup Distraction

Last Wednesday I was back at the continuation high school. English. They were studying the Hero's Journey

Well, they were supposed to be studying the Hero's Journey. It was a great assignment with video examples and a flow chart for them to fill in so they could get a feel for the topic. 

"Can I go to Coach's room?" 

I usually get a couple requests a day from students who want to go to PE. The volleyball game is very popular. The students do have work to do, but it's their credits they're not earning. 

I check with Coach to make sure it's okay to send them. 

But on this day, they didn't want to play volleyball. On this day, Coach was playing the World Cup match in his room.

As soon as I let one kiddo go, five others popped up. "Can we go, too?"

The next thing I knew, half the class wanted to go. Sigh.

The next period, half the class came from Coach's room (which was next door) to "check in", that is, get marked present so they could go back to watching the game. 

I made a list of who went and left that for the teacher.

And then a few returned because the room was too crowded. They pulled up the game on their computers. 

Occasionally we would hear cheers from next door. Someone would clue us in to what had happened. 

The game ended a few minutes into fifth period. My students returned. Disappointed. 

Mexico lost. 

One girl who had dressed for the occasion in her Mexico jersey said that she wasn't surprised. She figures France is going to win it all. 

And for the rest of fifth period, they debated which team was the best. They all had their favorites. As many of them are from or have family from other countries, that meant that there were a variety of teams being rooted for.

As for me, I don't really follow sports, so I listened with half an ear. And I hoped that they would get their work done eventually.

21 comments:

  1. Well, they at least practiced English in on an international topic. Now, if only they could write that down in a cohesive, interesting essay. :-)

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    1. Perhaps their teacher did that the next day. She did know that they had watched.

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  2. I don't follow sports, either, but hopefully they all had fun. :)

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    1. They seemed to, but they were disappointed by the outcome.

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  3. Sports only involve cat wrangling at my house!

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    1. The whole soccer thing is lost on many of us.

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  4. I bet there's quite a few students of Mexican descent there who are devastated about the loss.

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  5. The World Cup is what kind of sport again? ;)

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  6. I'm surprised many of them follow soccer. It's not that popular of a sport here.

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    1. We have a large Latino population. Soccer is very popular here.

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  7. My husband and son are both into American football. We aren't paying attention to the World Cup but I can see the interest in your students. Too bad it couldn't have been woven into the lessons during the Cup series in some ways.

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    1. Oh, I'm sure someone is taking advantage. They're just not in my orbit.

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  8. I love that they had the opportunity to watch (even if their team(s) lost). I'm not a huge soccer fan (except for AFC Richmond, of course...) but I've enjoyed watching the matches when I've bee out and about this world cup.

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  9. It must be hard keeping up with all those TEENS.

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  10. I guess it was better than them just being disruptive.

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  11. If their English teacher can somehow correlate the soccer game with the hero’s journey, what a lesson that would be for the kids.

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  12. Well, what can you do when they're watching a game on TV in the next room.

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    1. Oh, and it's a big TV. It's definitely how you want to watch the game.

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  13. Sports can be a major distraction. Football is quite a craze world over, even in places where they aren't popular.

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