📘 Part 3: Children and sports

This episode's vocabulary

To promote (verb) - to encourage people to like, buy, use, do, or support something.

To handle (verb) - to deal with, have responsibility for, or be in charge of.

To put someone off (phrasal verb) - to tell someone that you cannot see them or do something for them, or to stop someone from doing something, until a later time.

Prematurely (adj.) - in a way that happens or is done too soon, especially before the natural or suitable time.

Advantageous (adj.) - giving advantages or helping to make you more successful.

Gross motor skills (plural noun) - the abilities required to control the muscles of the body for large movements such as crawling, walking, jumping, running, and more.

Self-managed (adj.) - making your own decisions about how to organize your work, rather than being led or controlled by a manager.

Resilience (noun) - the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened.

Perseverance (noun) - continued effort to do or achieve something, even when this is difficult or takes a long time.

To be on the move (idiom) - to be physically active.

Underdeveloped (adj.) - not as advanced or powerful as possible or expected.

Cognitive (adj.) - connected with thinking or conscious mental processes.

By default - happening or done because no formal choice or decision has been made.

Novelty (noun) - the quality of being new and unusual.

To sidetrack (verb) - to direct a person's attention away from an activity or subject towards another one that is less important.

Either-or (adj.) - used to refer to a situation in which there is a choice between two different plans of action, but both together are not possible.

Influx (noun) - the fact of a large number of people or things arriving at the same time.

To overburden (verb) - to make someone or something work too hard or carry, contain, or deal with too much.

Adequate (adj.) - enough or satisfactory for a particular purpose.

Up-and-coming (adj.) - likely to achieve success soon or in the near future.

Venue (noun) - the place where a public event or meeting happens.

Specialist (adj.) - having or involving detailed knowledge of a subject.

Arena (noun) - a large, flat area surrounded by seats used for sports or entertainment.

To exceed (verb) - to be greater than a number or amount, or to go past an allowed limit.

Readily (adverb) - quickly, immediately, willingly, or without any problem.

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Questions and Answers

M: What are the benefits of sports for children?

R: Well, aside from promoting general health and fitness, I suppose they're also elements of learning how to handle feedback and competition. And using that for progression. In addition, you can also learn valuable skills like tracking progress, or how to handle your body in different situations. But for example, you'd have to learn how you're getting better at running by timing yourself.

M: And what are the disadvantages of doing sports for children?

R: I suppose if you were doing something too complicated, you might risk putting them off prematurely. And there's the potential they could be injured. For example, I know that one child, the school I used to work in, broke their arm by accident. So that's pretty serious. But I think these risks are pretty minimal. On the whole, it's quite advantageous to do sport.

M: Do children need exercise?

R: Well, doesn't everyone need exercise to live? In this case of children specifically, it's important for developing their fine and gross motor control. For example, the small actions that people use to maintain their balance and positioning your legs appropriately to do the same thing. It's also useful for building up your self-management skills like resilience or perseverance since you have to compete and keep up with others. And all of those things will be useful in later life.

M: Do young people like to do sports?

R: Well, I imagine most of them do, since they're constantly on the move and making up games involving movement, you'd be surprised what they'd come up with if you just throw a ball of any description and some cones at them and then see what they do and how they communicate to create a game. If everything is laid out for them, like an organized sport, or sorry, like in an organized sport, then they can focus solely on that and achieve a great deal.

M: How often do you think young people should do sports?

R: Well, as often as possible. I mean, if it were me, I would be getting them to do some every day. But I don't make those sorts of decisions. I think the norm in schools is two hours a week, at least in this country.

M: Why do some young people do less sport than adults?

R: It's difficult to appreciate what you have as a child sometimes, because, well, you're relatively underdeveloped cognitively and physically, that means that you don't always take advantage of the opportunities offered to participate in sports when they present themselves. Children are also usually more easily distracted by other things, since everything is new to them, and they almost always want to engage with them just by default. You can see this in the response to novelty offered by digital media. So in that environment, it's easy to understand how they can get sidetracked.

M: Some people think that facilities for doing sports should be built by the government. Would you agree? Or should people pay for the facilities and build their own facilities?

R: I don't see why it has to be an either-or thing. I mean, the government could provide the money alongside that provided by the local community. I mean, if the local community wants it, then they should help pay for it as well, shouldn't they? And in the same way, the government wants people to be healthy in the country, or at least they should do. So they should contribute towards this as well. So I think it can be a combined thing.

M: And should the gyms be free to people?

R: Once which are built by the government or in general?

M: Just like in general, like all the gyms.

R: Like, well, it depends, because right now, if all gyms were made free to people, and there was this huge influx, then they might be overburdened because I think they don't have the capacity to hold the number of people that want to go to them. So it's probably better that they're run as a business. On the other hand, if we had more gyms and adequate capacity, then they could be made free because then there would be enough for everybody.

M: And what about the future? What facilities for sports, like places for doing sports, will be built in the future?

R: Well, let's assume the population keeps increasing, and the majority of people like big sports like football, and rugby, and tennis, so I guess more football stadiums or more sports stadiums will be being built in general. And then there are up-and-coming sports like eSports. So having venues for those as well... Sometimes stadiums are used for these sorts of events, but other times there are specialist arenas I suppose that are created for those. And then there's things like... There are competitions for drone flying too, and I wonder if they might need specialist venues as well. So all of these are venues which could be built in the future, whether they're for traditional sports or for ones that are new on the scene.

M: And do you think cybersports will become even more popular?

R: Oh, absolutely. I keep talking about this, but novelty offered by digital technology far exceeds what's available, or at least readily available in the real world. So as long as that stays the same, and as long as people remain hungry for new stuff or new experiences, then it's likely that these things will keep increasing in popularity, or these kinds of sports will increase in popularity.

M: Thank you for your answers!

R: Thank you for your questions!

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Discussion

M: So, there we go. Benefits of doing sports. Yeah, kind of like cliche questions, right? What are the benefits of sport? Yeah, sorry, dear listener, but sports is one of these topics, which, yeah, it's kind of pretty much is always with us in IELTS. So there we go. In essays, in speaking, everywhere. And sports, or sport promotes general health and fitness. And Rory said that, it helps us to learn how to handle feedback, handle feedback, how to deal with feedback, feedback, like what people tell us, and how to handle competition, right? How to deal with competition, how to handle competition. And also how to track progress when we do sports, we usually track our progress, the same as when we do exercises. Yeah? Also how to handle your body. We handle our bodies, we deal with our bodies in different situations.

R: We also handle and deal with situations as well.

M: Yeah. The disadvantages, you can say on the flip side, so the disadvantages could be that children could be injured, right? So they can, I don't know, break their leg or neck.

R: I like the casual way that you said that. They could break their neck and it would be fine. It's okay.

M: And when parents make children do sports, it could put them off.

R: Well, if teachers make them do it, too, it could put them off. That just means that you have a bad time. And you don't want to do it anymore because you had this bad experience.

M: Yeah. So I was put off doing football because, well, when I was younger, I wasn't very well. So I couldn't do sports, but I needed to.

R: Yeah, usually it happens with music. So parents make children go into music and, I don't know, play an instrument and then children are put off, yeah? Like it puts me off. No, no, no, I don't want to play music anymore. Exercise. We do exercise. Yeah? We do yoga, we play sports. And we play different games. We do karate. What else do we do? Do boxing? Yeah?

R: Do gymnastics?

M: Yeah, there we go. Do swimming. But we usually play different sports, like football and play games, right? Badminton. And children need exercise to develop their fine and gross motor control. What do you mean like by fine and gross? Gross? Gross?

R: Fine motor skills involve small movements to achieve something. Gross motor skills involve large movements. So if you're doing handwriting, for example, that involves fine motor skills because you have to move your hands and fingers very gently. But if you're doing boxing, that requires gross motor skills because you're making big movements with your arms.

M: Yeah. And then we can also say, exercises help children to maintain balance, position their legs appropriately, right? It's all about balance. Actually, whatever activity you do, like dancing, yoga, I don't know, sports, they always teach you about this balance, right? And also, it's good for building up your self-management skills. So we build up our skills. Yeah? We enhance our skills. That's another synonym. Self-management skills. And then Rory gives examples of what kind of skills, so you see, to explain his ideas, develop them. Like resilience, perseverance. Oh, how can we explain that?

R: Well, resilience is just that you don't let bad things stop you from achieving what you want to. Whereas perseverance is just keeping going.

M: Yeah. Like kind of stress resilient. Yeah? So I'm resilient, I have this resilience. And also exercise helps us to keep up with others. So to keep up, Like to hang out, to socialize, to communicate, keep up with others, with other people. Young people enjoy doing sports, because they are constantly on the move. Yeah? I'm on the move. I'm always moving, you know. I always do stuff, different activities. Constantly, like all the time. Another phrasal verb is to be laid out, to lay out. And Rory said that if everything is laid out for them, for children, for young people, they can do something. Right?

R: Yeah. So if something is laid out, it's just like it's prepared in advance. So you can see how it works just by looking at it. Or you don't really have to make that much of an effort to like, work out what the rules are, because it's there. It's ready.

M: Yeah, when we do sports, we have to work out the rules, we have to remember the rules, right? But if it's laid out, if the rules are laid out for me, yeah, it's kind of, it could be easier to engage in a sport and achieve a great deal. Yeah? Sport is about achievement. You can say, yeah, it helps people to achieve things. Then we're moving to adults and mature people versus young people and sport. And Rory told us that some people could be undeveloped cognitively and physically. Not children.

R: Like children are people, are they not?

M: But who is more undeveloped?

R: Well, most of the time children are more undeveloped than adults.

M: Oh, okay. Yeah, like cognitively like mentally, right? Because a child is still kind of young. And physically also kind of motor skills are not developed. So you can say that, yes, it's difficult for some young people to do sports, because they are undeveloped, cognitively and physically, so they can't work out the rules. They are not strong enough, they don't have this perseverance, resilience to keep going, you know, and kind of continue playing this football or playing basketball. Oh, I hated basketball at school.

R: Why?

M: Because I was small and thin, and my hands were like really weak. And this like, massive ball, you know, and this, you know, like, boys who would just throw this massive ball at your face. Yeah, I was fragile at school. And then you participate in sports, you participate in team sports, or individual sports, for example. And one benefit of sport is that people can get easily distracted. Yeah? By sports.

R: Well, one reason people don't do sports more than adults is that they could be easily distracted.

M: So young people don't do sports because they're easily distracted. By what? By social media?

R: By anything. By digital technology, but it doesn't have to be something new. It could be by anything because they just... They're eager to experience all the new things.

M: Okay, interesting. And then the novelty, right? They could be disrupted by the novelty offered by digital media. And just okay, why would I want to play football, I'm going to engage in social media activities. And they can be easily sidetracked. Again, another synonym for to be distracted, to be sidetracked. When, for example, you started playing football and then like, oh, this you know, e-scooters, yay, virtual reality, hey. And you kind of you go in those directions and you forget about your football. And then when we talk about money, money could be allocated to building sports facilities, we call it facilities or amenities, like stadiums, tennis courts.

R: Or venues.

M: Venues. Right. Places. Like gyms, like stadiums again, more stadiums.

R: We really like stadiums.

M: Swimming pools, for example. And people could contribute to building such facilities. Or the government could contribute, yeah? Or make a contribution to building amenities, facilities, or venues for doing sports. An interesting idea Rory mentioned is that if gyms were made free. So let's imagine that gyms are free, so you go there to work out, it's free for you. And if gyms are overburdened with people, yeah? If there are too many people going to the gym, because it's for free. So they cannot host so many people, right? So this could be like negative. Because they run as a business. And it's maybe better if they run as a business, and they are not free. And then we can use the second conditional if we had more gyms, but we don't, if we had, past. yeah? The second conditional. If we had more gyms, some of them could be made free. Yeah? So be made free. And then Rory, you talked about eSports. So cyber sports?

R: Yes.

M: And venues for cybersports. What do you mean by specialist venues?

R: Just venues made for a specific purpose. To be honest, I don't really know if, like what they would be called if it's for esports. Like, an eSports arena? An eSports stadium?

M: An internet cafe.

R: Is it? Is that what... No, they wouldn't be called that.

M: No, I don't know. Like, Cybersport place. Cybersport bar. Yeah. People should remain hungry for sports. Yeah? Remain hungry for different activities, remain hungry for, I don't know, what? For what? For our podcast. And also you can say like specialist venues or special arenas. Arenas are kind of like areas, yeah? Places. That's another synonym. When you talk about the future, and the examiner might ask you questions about the future. What about the future? What will happen? What will we have? You can use is likely to structure. That's like number one structure to use. For example, more people are likely to do different sports, or the government is likely to build more facilities for sports. Or, for example, cybersports is likely to increase in popularity, so is likely - will probably be more popular. Yeah? Can I use future perfect? By 2050...

R: Will have been... No, maybe... It may be more popular?

M: By 2050 it will have been more popular. Yeah. It will... Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Yeah.

R: Yeah, it's likely to be more popular than it is now.

M: Do you ever use future perfect?

R: I don't. But perhaps we should integrate it into one of our scripts and really confuse people.

M: No, no, please, no, no, no, don't. Don't do this. No, no, easy, easy.

R: And on that happy note...

M: We go easy on you, dear listener. Yeah, future perfect is kind of rarely used these days. Yeah. So be careful with this. Thank you very much for listening! We love you! We hug you!

R: And we'll see you next time! Bye!

M: Bye!

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