Who’s your favourite athlete?

Ewa | Jul 27, 2026Jul 24, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this ESL lesson on sports are to:

• discuss and exchange views on sports;
• practise key sports-related vocabulary;
• practise speaking and listening through guessing games.

In this lesson, students talk about their favourite athletes, explore words for sports (e.g. basketball, tennis, boxing) and discuss their experiences and preferences. They learn useful vocabulary (e.g. competition, fan, player) and name sports, teams and famous competitions. Students also play two guessing games. They listen to clues to identify a sport and ask ‘Yes or No’ questions in pairs using sport cards.

WARM-UP AND VOCABULARY

This ESL lesson on sports starts with a warm-up. Students read the definition of ‘athlete’, think of their favourite one and answer questions about them. After that, they complete the gaps in sentences with sports in pictures (e.g. skiing, surfing, snooker). Then, students examine lines with different sports, say which words are different from the others and explain their choices. Moving on, they use the sports from the previous exercise to answer questions about personal experiences, preferences and general knowledge. Students add details.

MORE VOCABULARY AND GAMES

In this part of this ESL lesson on sports, students look at statements (e.g. Volleyball is an example of team sport.) and match useful words and phrases (e.g. individual sport, match, competition) with their definitions. Afterwards, they do tasks where they say things sports fans often do and name sports, teams and famous competitions. Then, students play a game. They listen to clues, guess sports and get points every time they do it correctly. Finally, students play one more game in which they get cards with sports. In pairs, they ask ‘Yes or No’ questions to guess the sport.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This ESL lesson on sports also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students do a crossword using the target vocabulary from the lesson. They then create one word using letters from the crossword. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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