The Sport and Leisure activities topic is one of the most popular topics when you interact with people in English.
Most people play sports, do some sort of physical activity or follow a sport.
If we want to talk about sports and leisure activities, we have to know a couple of things:
- List of sports
- List of leisure activities
- Tenses in English
- Common Vocabulary
Let’s start by exploring what the most common sports and leisure activities are.
Tabla de contenido
- List of sports and Leisure Activities in English
- Structures to Talk about Sports and Activities in English
- Sport and Leisure Activities Questions
- #1 Sport Conversation Questions
- #2 Leisure Activities Conversation Questions
- Sport and Leisure Activities Dialogues
- Video about Sports in English
- Lesson Ideas: Sports and Leisure Activities
- Presentation of the Topic
- Practice Time
- Production Time
List of sports and Leisure Activities in English
There are many sports and leisure activities but these are the most common so as you go through the list, think about the ones that you do, play and practice.
This is a list of the most common sports in English:
| Athletics | motorcycle racing |
| baseball | polo |
| basketball | rugby |
| bowling | scuba diving |
| car racing | skiing |
| cycling | skin diving |
| football | snowboarding |
| golf | soccer |
| gymnastics | softball |
| handball | swimming |
| hockey | table tennis |
| horse racing | tennis |
| jogging | volleyball |
This is a list of the most common leisure activities in English:
| Go to the movies | Check Facebook |
| Watch TV | Blogging |
| Watch movies | Check the news |
| Watch Soap Operas | Play video games |
| Spend time with family | Play an instrument |
| Play with your children | Listen to music |
| Go out with your children | Read |
| Go dancing | Go to the park |
| Have dinner at a restaurant | Go to concerts |
| Play a sport | Go shopping |
| Go out for a coffee | Cook |
| Hang out | Study |
| Watch Youtube videos | Exercise |
| Surf the web | Work out |
| Watch music videos | Go to the gym |
Structures to Talk about Sports and Activities in English
When we talk about sports and leisure activities, we usually talk about what we like and sometimes we say a thing or two about the ones we don’t like.
In this section you are gonna see some sentences made up with these verbs:
| Like | Love |
| Enjoy | Prefer |
Check these affirmative sentences about some sports and leisure activities.
- I like playing video games
- I like to play sports
- I love playing basketball
- I love to do exercises
- I enjoy reading books
- I prefer reading magazines
Now it is the turn of the negative statements that you can make about some sports and leisure activities.
- I dislike going to the gym
- I hate working out
- I don’t like to play sports
- I hate playing soccer
Sport and Leisure Activities Questions
These are some sport and leisure conversation questions.
You can use these questions to generate conversation among students:
#1 Sport Conversation Questions
- Do you ever play soccer?
- What’s your favorite sport?
- Do you like going swimming?
- Do you usually go runnig in the morning?
- How about going to the gym after classes?
- Do you like playing chess with highschool friends?
#2 Leisure Activities Conversation Questions
- Do you like watching Netflix Shows?
- What do you want to do after school?
- What board games do you want to play?
- Do you usually go to the beach on the weekends?
Sport and Leisure Activities Dialogues
This is a dialogue about sports in English, it has to do with the Boston Marathon.
| W: Did you watch the Boston marathon? |
| M: Yes, I went to Boston to see it. |
| W: You were in Boston for the marathon? |
| M: That’s right. My friend is a runner, so I went there to watch her run. We traveled to Boston together. |
| W: You are so lucky! Which part of the marathon did you see? |
| M: I watched the entire race, from start to finish. |
| W: I don’t know how the runners can finish the whole race! It’s so long and difficult! I could never do something like that. |
| M: I tried to run a marathon once. It was really difficult. I just can’t run like my friend can. |
| W: Yes, running a marathon is not an easy thing to do. By the way, how did your friend do in the race? |
| M: She did quite well! She was not the fastest runner, but she was in the top 50. |
Video about Sports in English
If you want to learn some more about sports, you can watch this video created by WoodWard English, another great website to learn English
Lesson Ideas: Sports and Leisure Activities
This is a lesson plan which was created to teach about sports and leisure activities
Presentation of the Topic
There are several ways to introduce this topic
- You can create a wordle, one for leisure activities and one for sports. You can print both wordles and ask students if they have any questions about the vocabulary contained in them. If students have mobile phone, you can send both pictures to their mobile devices. Remember to check on pronunciation
- You can create a Flashcard Quizlet Set so they practice spelling and pronunciation. This can be easily implemented if students had mobile phones.
- To introduce the structures, make sure that you create some dialogues and ask students to highlight the key vocabulary and structures
Practice Time
These are some listening activities:
- What’s your favorite sport?(Share.america.gov)
- Going to a soccer game(Share.america.gov)
Production Time
- You can ask students to create a collage of their favorite sports and holidays and then ask them to talk about them for a minute or two
