Sports and Hobbies Collocations Pelmanism Game

Instructions for teachers

Preparation

Photocopy and cut up one pack of cards per 2 or 3 students. Photocopy one more copy of the worksheet for students to check their answers with and take away as reference.

Optional warmer/ lead-in - Sports and hobbies random pelmanism

Give out one pack of cards to each group of two or three students and ask them to spread the whole pack across the table face down, so that no cards are on top of one another. The first person should turn over two cards face up. If they can say how the two things shown are similar in some way (e.g. “You use a racket in both sports” or “They are both places with water”), they can keep the cards and score two points. Each explanation can only be used once during the game (they can’t just say “They are both sports” each time).

If they can’t find a connection between the two cards, they have to turn them back over and put them back in the same places they came from, then play passes to the next person.

Language presentation

Discuss some of the similarities they came up with. Useful ones to mention for the later stages are ball sports, team sports, places and words ending in -ing. If they don’t mention which verbs are used with these nouns, bring up the subject and ask them to work together to put the activities that are used with play + noun, go + noun, go to + noun and do + noun into these four columns.

If any teams finish quickly, let them recheck their own answers by first of all telling them there should be an equal number in each column, then checking their answers and telling them how many mistakes they have made.

Check the answers as a class or give out the extra copies of the worksheet for students to check their own answers (the sports are already arranged by column on the worksheet). Discuss what the differences are: go to + place; go + ing word (especially those connected to moving around); play + sport (or game) with clear winner and points, e.g. ball sports and team sports; do + others such as non-competitive activities and exercise rather than sports. Note that it is also possible to say “go to Tai Chi” etc. if it means “go to Tai Chi class”, and so you should allow this if students bring it up. There might also be some others that can fit in more than one category.

Practice – Pelmanism game

Get the teams to turn over the cards and play the game again, but this time only trying to find pairs that use the same verb e.g. “Football” and “Baseball” (both “play”+). Stop the game after the first team finishes. The person in each team with most cards is the winner.

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Cards to cut up

Football	Jogging	A football pitch	Aerobics
Baseball	Walking	The gym	Judo
Volleyball	Rock climbing	The park	Step aerobics
Table tennis	Hiking	The pool	Weights
Pool	Skiing	A golf lesson	Yoga
American football	Horse riding	A running track	Aqua aerobics
Tennis	Trekking	The tennis club	Athletics
Badminton	Swimming	The beach	Gymnastics
Darts	Snowboarding	The mountains	A bungee jump
Ice hockey	Skateboarding	A darts bar	Archery
Golf	Surfing	A baseball stadium	Karate
Cricket	Sailing	A tennis school	A marathon
Rugby	Canoeing	A horse racing rack	The decathlon