The Role of Sports in Our Life. The Sequence of Tenses

Lesson 1

The Role of Sports in Our Life. The Sequence of Tenses.

1. Agree or disagree.

1. Taking part in sports helps develop the character of young people. That is why all young people must take part in sport.
2. Team games develop the team spirit and working together.
3. Team games encourage people to be competitive.
4. Children should not team games in school.
5. ‘Fair game’ and ‘playing the game’ is more important than winning.
6. Individual sports develop the individual more than team games.

2. Read the text and fill in the chart given below.

                                Physical Culture and Sports in Our Life

   If you want to be healthy, strong and beautiful, you should go in for sports. And if you want to keep yourselves fit, you should do sports regularly. Nobody likes to be stout and clumsy. We enjoy watching nice bodies of sportsmen, their strength and adroitness. When I go in for sports I feel myself fine, I am cheerful, active and full of energy.

   I try to do some training almost every day. In summer I go swimming, in winter I ski. Certainly, it depends on the weather.

    It’s very important to choose the kind of sport you like best. Some kinds of sports need simple equipment and facilities, others need rather complex ones.

   As to our gym in the college, it’s very small but the lessons of physical training are very intensive and interesting. Our teachers do all their best to make us healthy. Our students take the first and second places in many sports competitions in Dubno and in our region. Such sports as track-and-field, basketball and tennis, and such games as chess and draughts are popular in our college.

   In general, Ukrainians are sportive. Hockey, football, boxing and other sports are very popular. Numerous national and international matches and competitions are regularly held in our country. They attract large numbers of fans. Everybody not only in Ukraine but in the whole world knows the names of brothers Klychko, Laryssa Latynina, Oksana Bayul, Sergiy Bubka and many others whom we are proud of.

   So sport is fun, health and an active way of life. To cut a long story short, I should admit that everyone must do all he can to be healthy. Physically inactive people get old earlier than those who have plenty of exercises. If you do daily exercises, you feel refreshed, have a good posture and that makes you feel good. I can add that good health is better than the best medicine. You nave ‘a sound mind in a sound body’, as the old Latin saying goes. The English proverb ‘Sickness in the body brings sickness to the mind’ expresses a similar idea, but from a different point of view.

                                            Words and Expressions

to go in for (to do) sports – займатися спортом

to keep fit – тримати себе у гарній фізичній формі

stout – гладкий, огрядний

clumsy – незграбний

adroitness – спритність

equipment – обладнання

facilities – умови

to do one’s best – робити усе, що можливо

track-and-field – легка атлетика

to cut a long story short – коротше кажучи

‘a sound mind in a sound body’ – у здоровому тілі здоровий дух

3. Read the answers of several interviewed people about their attitude to sports and say whom you agree with and why.

1. Tommy Murphy, 22.

   Well, I consider myself an armchair sportsman. I enjoy sports most when I am at home watching the ‘Grandstand’ on TV. It’s cricket that I like in particular. I could watch it for hours on end. I even stopped fixing my motorbike last week to watch England playing Jamaika. And I love my motorbike! You see it’s not that I’m not interested in sports. I’m just too lazy to drag myself to the football ground to kick the ball around. I’d rather meet my mates in the pub and discuss the weekend’s football results with them. This and reading the sports pages in the paper are my kinds of sports.

1. Tony Rogers, 20.

   Oh, I love it. I’m very active in sports. I’ve always been like that. I remember spending my days running through the woods and climbing up trees when I was a little boy. Now I go jogging every week, and besides that, I play tennis every now and then. My favourite sport, however, is football. My life would be boring without it. I think I love it because it’s a team game and you need all kinds of skills. You must be fit, you must keep an eye on what your team-mates do, and you need a quick brain. I’m a member of our local football team. You see, that’s the other thing I like about sports: you make new friends, it gives you a feeling of being part of something. We even do a lot of things together besides football. Last year some of us went on a big holiday to Italy, which was great fun. Anyway, sports keep you fit and healthy, doesn’t it?

1. Hilary Brown, 17.

   Well, sport is fun, isn’t it? I couldn’t imagine a life without sport, could you? Only maths, English and history – how dull that would be! I love riding, playing volleyball and sailing. It’s wonderful to be in the open and enjoy the fresh air and the sun. But it’s tennis that I’m really interested in. My sports teacher told me that I had a skill for playing tennis and that I should practice it more thoroughly. That’s why I stopped sailing and riding, because tennis takes up my free time now. It would be great if I made it big as a tennis professional. Just think of the money you could earn. It would be fantastic to travel around the world, to meet people in the business, to be interviewed by TV reporters. I know it’s only a dream at the moment. But maybe it’ll come true.