• Home
  • Our Shop
  • About Us
    • About MKB
    • Our Shop
    • MKB Board
    • Editorial Board and MKB Administrators
    • Our Contributors
    • For Bloggers: Join MKB
    • Books and Products from Our Members
    • Cultural Resources
    • Contact Us
  • Product Promotion Services
  • Blog Hops & Series
    • Holidays Around the World
      • Martin Luther King Day
      • Chinese New Year
      • Purim
      • Passover
      • Easter Around the World
      • Ramadan
      • Hajj (Eid al Adha)
      • Rosh Hashanah
      • Day of the Dead
      • Diwali
      • Hanukkah
      • Christmas in Different Lands
    • Heritage Months
      • Black History Month
      • Women’s History Month
      • Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Month
      • Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month
      • Hispanic Heritage Month
      • Native American Heritage Month
    • Blogging Carnivals
    • Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop
    • Global Learning for Kids
  • Resources for Raising Global Citizens
  • Privacy Policy

Multicultural Kid Blogs

For families and educators raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love.

Counting down to the World Cup

December 6, 2013 by Jonathan Ervine

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

World Cup

Right now, a lot of people are counting down to Christmas. However, I’m also counting down the days and months to next year’s football World Cup in Brazil. I’m tempted to get all arty and make a sort of football advent calendar with windows that reveal a picture to do with each of the 32 competing nations.

Every time the World Cup draw comes round, I think back to how I marveled at past tournaments as I was growing up and developing an enthusiasm for football. The 1990 World Cup in Italy is the first World Cup that I recall being really excited about and I can remember watching the draw as Scotland were placed in a group along with Brazil, Sweden and Costa Rica. I also have memories of seeing the Republic of Ireland reach the quarter finals after a penalty shoot-out victory against Romania that I watched on television with my parents, both of whom are from Ireland.

For me, the World Cup (and football in general) has always been about more than just the games that take place during June and July every four years. Back in 1990, I remember that we did a project at primary school that focused on Italy. It included learning about the Romans, the explosion of the volcano Vesuvius and also major Italian cities. This is one of many examples that I have come across of how the World Cup can provide a way in to learning about foreign countries and cultures.

World Cup

In the year leading up to the 1998 World Cup in France, the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs organised a competition entitled ‘Allons en France 98’ (Let’s go to France 98) that was open to pupils, students and teachers all around the world. The prize was a two week stay at the World Cup that included a fantastic range of cultural activities and trips to three of the matches in the latter stages of the tournament.

There were 600 winners from more than 120 different countries and I was very lucky to be one of the 11 UK representatives after competing in a contest that involved writing an imaginative essay about being in France during the World Cup. In my essay, Scotland won all three of their group matches, including the tournament’s opening match against Brazil. Unfortunately, the reality of the tournament wasn’t all that close to my fictional account as a draw against Norway and defeats against Brazil and Norway meant that Scotland were heading home from France before my World Cup visit had begun.

However, the two weeks in France were truly amazing. They involved spending a week in Lyon and a week in Paris. The footballing highlight for me was being present in the Stade de France to see France qualify for the World Cup Final after a dramatic victory against Croatia. Just being in France when they subsequently won the final against Brazil was amazing, as was being at a reception at the Palais de l’Elysée two days later on July 14th (Bastille Day, France’s national day). The winning team were present and I remember elbowing my way past quite a few guests, and one or two photographers, in order to take some photos of ‘Les Bleus’ with the World Cup trophy.

World Cup

The 1998 World Cup came at a significant time in my life as it took place in the summer that came just after I had completed secondary school in Scotland and just before I started university in Leeds, in the north of England. In Leeds, football and French at times came together again. There was a school near the university campus where I volunteered to help out in French classes and also ran football practice for one of the junior years. Languages and football would also be reunited in other ways as there were several occasions when I would go into local schools to talk about languages. Part of these visits would often involve talking about the significance of France winning the 1998 World Cup with such a diverse team that was frequently held up as a powerful symbol of modern French society.

In 2006, when I was a PhD student writing a thesis about images of social and racial exclusion in French films, hundreds of school children came to campus during the World Cup Finals in Germany for a ‘World Cup of Languages’ event. This involved taster sessions in languages such as French, German, Italian and Portuguese and some sport-related activities.

During my time in Leeds, I also volunteered at an after-school club that aimed to boost children’s literacy, numeracy and IT skills that took place at Leeds United’s Elland Road stadium. The location seemed to inspire those who attended and their enthusiasm was always clear to see.

World Cup

Recently, I have been delighted to see that some UK football clubs such as Arsenal have participated in after-school clubs that have helped to promote language learning. Indeed, Arsenal even have a languages coordinator at their after-school club. Furthermore, their manager Arsène Wenger – a man for whom my dad was once mistaken – was recently named the UK’s 2013 public language champion following a contest organised by the newspaper The Guardian. Wenger is fluent in English, French and German and also learnt Japanese when coaching a team in Nagoya.

Football and languages are now part of my life in and out of work. Over the last decade, I have managed to take in football matches in Wales, Scotland, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Finland and the Czech Republic. I now teach French at Bangor University and do research into representations of minority groups in France. As fate would have it, this has recently included working with colleagues in the UK, Ireland and France on projects that have involved studying relations between sport, media and national identity in a French and Francophone context.

Away from work, this year’s World Cup will be my first since becoming a parent. As I have mentioned in a post on my blog entitled My First Football Season as a Dad, being a parent has meant that I have perhaps not watched quite as much football as I once did. However, I still remain as passionate as ever about football, travel and languages and will be interested to see if our son will grow up to share some of these interests.

World Cup for Kids - Multicultural Kid Blogs
You can read more from our World Cup for Kids series.  You can also follow our World Cup for Kids boards on Pinterest.

World Cup DadSince becoming a dad in April 2013, Jonathan has thought a lot about what it means to be a dad and how dads are represented in society. He set up his blog, Dad’s the Way I Like It, in order to reflect on these issues, share experiences and create a forum for discussion. He lives in North West Wales with his wife, son and a pet chicken. They are bringing up their son bilingually, and this is one of the topics that he covers, as well as the general issues to do with parenting.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts

Jonathan Ervine

Jonathan Ervine is from Scotland and lives in Wales with his wife and son. He speaks English, French and Welsh and blogs about topics such as bilingual parenting, babywearing and fatherhood at his blog 'Dad's the way I like it'. You can follow him on Twitter at @j_ervine.

Latest posts by Jonathan Ervine (see all)

  • Let The Summer Games Begin! - August 5, 2016
  • Multicultural and multilingual fatherhood - June 19, 2015
  • Football’s World Cup – more than just a game - April 4, 2014

Filed Under: World Cup for Kids Tagged With: language, sports for kids, travel, world cup

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required

Comments

  1. Amanda van Mulligen says

    December 6, 2013 at 11:26 am

    Great post Jonathan – love how you’ve captured so many topics under the umbrella of football. When I lived in Toulouse I was a regular on the terraces there – a football stadium is certainly the place to see passionate French 🙂

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on Google+Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Instagram

Anti-Bullying Resource FREE Download

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Grab Our Button!

grab button for Multicultural Kid Blogs
<div class="multicultural-kid-blogs-button" style="width: 200px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/button-take-3.jpg" alt="Multicultural Kid Blogs" width="200" height="200" /> </a> </div>
Multicultural Children's Book Day Co-Host

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT