Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Teacher’s Guide
Page 1
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (Teacher’s Guide)
Integrated Humanities Learning and Teaching Resources (S1-3)
Issue:
Why do the Olympic Games matter?
Objectives :
Students are expected to
1.
be aware of the implication of the Olympic Games on themselves
2.
understand the aims and development of the Olympic Games
3.
explain China’s increasing participation in the Olympic Games
4.
analyze the elements of sport commercialisation in the Olympic Games
5.
analyze the benefits and problems of hosting and co-hosting the Olympic Games for Beijing and HK
6.
evaluate the Olympic Games
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Unit &
Topic
Learning &Teaching Objectives
& Activities
Unit 1 - The
Objectives: Students should be able
1. to understand
 the Ancient Olympic Games, and
 the Modern Olympic Games
2. to identify the difference between the modern
and ancient Games
Activity:
1. Teacher may ask the following questions as an
introduction:
 How long is the history of the Olympic Games?
 Who held the first Olympic Games?
 Can you name some differences between the
ancient Olympic Games and modern Olympic
Games?
2. Teacher shows students the PPT file. Students
attempt the Quiz to test how much they know
about the Olympic Games
3. Students read Sections 1.1 and the sources given
in Section 1.2. Contrast the ancient and the
modern Olympic Games. Put the answers in the
table in Section 1.2.
history of the
Olympic Games
Teacher’s Guide
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Lesson
2
Powerpoint file
Pictures and photos about the ancient Olympic can be
obtained in the following websites:
The Olympic Games in Antiquity, International Olympic
Committee:
http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_658.pdf
Penn Museum: The real story of the ancient Olympic
Games :
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/olympics/olym
picathletes.shtml
Archaeological sites of Olympia:
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh3530.jsp?obj_id=2358
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Unit &
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Extended activity: Discussion : If you were
Roman Emperor Theodosius I, would you
ban the ancient Olympic Games? Give
reasons both for and against this proposal.
Unit 2 - The
development of
the modern
Olympic Games
Objectives: Students should be able to
2
1. identify some changes between the early and late editions
of the Games and
2. identify and explain three of the major changes between
the early and late editions of the Games: (i) increasing
popularity, (ii) changing location of the host cities and (iii)
women’s increasing participation.
Activity:
1. Teacher may ask students whether tug-of-war and golf are
Olympic events. Teacher then tells students that they were
once Olympic events and ask them to identify more
changes between the early (say, 1896 and 1900) and the
late (2000 and 2004) editions of the Games from photos.
Photos of the past Games can be found in the
following web sites:
http://en.beijing2008.cn/spirit/pastgames/s
ummerolympics/
http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/index_
uk.asp
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Unit &
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Teacher’s Guide
Learning &Teaching Objectives
& Activities
2. Students read the photos and suggest some changes.
3. Teacher demonstrates how to identify the changes in the
popularity of and women’s participation in the Olympic
Games in the last one hundred years.
4. Students find the above changes and the causes of them in
Section 2.1 and 2.2.
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Teacher should give examples of evidence
and cause before asking students to attempt
the task.
The sentences highlighted by students may
be different from those by the teacher. It is
OK as long as their choices are reasonable.
5. Students refer to Section 2.3. Each of them finds the
latitude and longitude of a few host cities.
6.
Teacher checks students’ answers and lists them on the
board.
7. With the help of the latitudes and longitudes, students
locate the host cities in the base map on p.7. Discuss the
changing location of the host cities in last one hundred
years.
Extended activity: Summarize Sections 2.1 2.3 by completing the mind map on Section
2.4. The mind map can be extended by
attaching another A4 paper to its right.
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Teacher’s Guide
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Topic
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& Activities
Unit 3 - China and
Objective: Students should be able to
the Olympic
Games
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Lesson
2
1. understand the history of China’s participation in the
Olympic Games,
2. identify some important events in the history of China’s
participation, and
3. understand the slogan and concepts of the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games and identify their expressions.
Activity:
1. Teacher introduces briefly to students about the history of
China’s participation in the Olympic Games by asking
them the following questions:
 When was the first time China sent athlete to compete in
the Olympic Games?
 Who was the first Chinese to compete in the Olympic
Games?
 Who was the first Chinese to win a gold medal in the
Olympic Games?
 How many times did China bid to host the Olympic
Games?
Teacher may also introduce the topic by
showing students the videos about China’s
participation in the Olympic Games :
Team China (1)
http://en.beijing2008.cn/video/historyv/tea
mchina1/index.shtml
Team China (2)
http://en.beijing2008.cn/video/historyv/tea
mchina2/index.shtml (Putonghua version
only)
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Unit &
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2. Students discuss and choose five important years about
China’s participation in the Olympic Games. They also
discuss which year is the most important among the five
and explain their answers.
3. Teacher summarizes students’ answers on the board.
Students give reasons to classmates to explain why these
five years are more important than other years.
4. Teacher explains the slogan of the Beijing Olympic Games
(Section 3.3) to students.
Teacher may write students’ reasons on the
board and ask students to induct the
similarity among them. This helps develop
students’ induction skill.
“One World One Dream”:
http://en.beijing2008.cn/video/promotional
/one/index.shtml
5. Students watch promotional video “One World One
Dream” and cite evidence from the video to tell how the
Olympic Games are a chance to show the spirit of “One
World One Dream”.
6. Students classify the examples in Section 3.3 into the three
concepts and complete the Venn diagram.
Extended activity: Write a proposal on
making your school a “Green”, “Hi-tech” and
“People’s” school.
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Teacher’s Guide
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Unit 4 - Elements
Objective: Students should be able to
1. understand the meaning of “culture”,
2. identify the elements of certain culture in day-to-day life
and in the Olympic Games, and
3. understand the elements of Chinese culture in the slogan
and images (emblem, medals, torch, pictographs and
mascots) of the Beijing Olympic Games.
of Chinese culture
in the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games
Activity:
1. Students brainstorm the term “Chinese culture”. Teacher
writes students’ findings on the board.
2. Teacher explains the meaning of culture (Section 4.1) and
emphasizes that culture is expressed in day-to-day life.
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1
When writing students’ findings on the
board, teacher is advised to classify similar
findings, for example into groups like
“wear”, “eat”, “play”, “educate”, “dwell”
and “travel”. It helps students to aware that
“culture” is expressed in day-to-day life.
3. Teacher tells students that big sporting events like the
Olympic Games are always a good chance for a country to
promote its culture, and shows students photos of the 2004
Olympic Games. Students identify the elements of Greek
culture from the photos (Section 4.2).
Teachers may (i) show students pictures of
ancient Greek Olympics before the students
attempt the activity, or (ii) explain the
elements of Greek culture shown in the
photos by themselves.
4. Teacher shows the pictures of the Beijing Olympic slogan
and images (emblem, torch, pictogram and mascot) and
tells students that they carry elements of Chinese culture.
Related images can be found in this web site :
http://en.beijing2008.cn/spirit/beijing2008/
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
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Page 8
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5. Teacher briefly explains the elements of Chinese culture
listed in p.4. Students match these elements with the
Olympic slogan and images.
Unit 5 - Hosting
the Olympic
Games
Objective: The students should be able
4
1. to understand Beijing’s and Hong Kong’s preparations for
hosting the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games,
2. to understand the possible benefits and problems
associated with hosting the Games, and
3. to suggest possible ways to relieve the problems
Activity:
1. Teacher shows students the video “We Won(2)” as an
introduction to the mini-project (Section 5.3). Teacher may
follow up by asking students these questions:
 Who were excited?
 Who might be the most excited?
 If you were a Beijing citizen, would you be so excited too?
Why/Why not?
We won(2) :
http://en.beijing2008.cn/video/historyv/in
dex.shtml
Teacher concludes by telling students that the past Games
brought both benefits and problems to host cities, and
inform students their task.
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Teacher’s Guide
Page 9
2. Teacher guides students to complete the information
collection exercise in Section 5.1. Students collect more
information (articles, web pages etc) at home for the use
next lesson.
3. Prioritize - Students name five problems associated with
hosting the Olympic Games. Guided by the teacher, they
select an urgent and important one to solve(Section 5.2.1).
4. Choosing solution - Students follow the steps in Section
5.2.2 to select an appropriate way to solve the problem.
Teacher summarizes students’ choice and highlights the
criteria behind the choice (effectiveness, cost and
reasonability)
Unit 6 - What do
the Olympic
Games mean to us?
Extended activity: Modifying the solution Students brainstorm the weaknesses of the
solution and suggest ways to make it better
(to make possible improvement in
practicability and effectiveness, to reduce the
adverse side effects).
Objectives: students should be able to:
1. understand the aspirations and strengths of oneself in
self-excellence,
2. understand how one’s self-concept is affected by external
factors ,
3. consider themselves as active participants in local / global
events, and
4. know the social norms and virtues of a local and global
citizen.
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
Unit &
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& Activities
Activity:
1. Refer to the video, identify the significant events in the
athlete’s interview and tell how the events affect one’s
confidence by plotting the chart.
2. Using the summary done in 6.1, list at least 4 factors to
create the athlete’s success in career. Analyze how these
factors contributing to the qualities of an athlete. Tell the
possible outcomes if any of these qualities is missing.
3. By referring to Olympism, students suggest an activity to
promote Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
4. Reflecting students’ own life experience and referring to
that of Lau Kwok Kin, students find out how individual
can live up to the Olympism.
5. Students carry out interview with various parties and find
out how different people response to the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games.
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Alternative resources
There are other available information such as
video / audio clips, on other local athletes
Hong Kong Athletes on media
http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/program_archive.cgi
?progdir=radio1/OlympicVirtues&event_name=
%E7%9A%87+%E8%80%85+%E9%A2%A8+
%E7%AF%84+%0A
Glamour of Sports – Programme highlights
http://www.rthk.org.hk/special/sports2006/chapte
r1.htm (Chinese version only)
Hong Kong Sport Stars Interviews by Sports
Federation & Olympic committee of Hong
Kong, China
http://www.hkolympic.org/article/sport_star_inte
rviews
Video “Interview with an local athlete – Lau
Kwok Kin”
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
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Unit 7 - Are the
Objective: The students should be able to
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Lesson
2
Olympic Games an
1. understand the features, factors and elements of sport
example of sport
commercialization, and
2.
identify the commercial and non-commercial elements of
commercialisation?
the Olympic Games.
Activity:
1. Students discuss the four introductory questions on p.1
and report their opinions to classmates.
2. When the students report, teacher highlights on the board
the elements and factors of sport commercialisation they
mentioned. After the students’ report, teacher highlights
the causal relationship among some of the elements and
factors on the board.
3. Students complete the flow chart in Section 7.1 .
4. Teacher briefly explains the definition and features of
sport commercialisation (Section 7.2 and 7.3).
5. Case study : Students name an example of commercialised
sporting event and identify the commercial elements of
this event.
Students or teacher may find useful
information about two sporting events that
are widely considered as commercialised
from these websites:
The Premier League :
http://www.premierleague.com/page/Hist
ory/0,,12306,00.html
National Basketball Association:
http://www.nba.com/
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
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6. Teacher asks if any student takes the Olympic Games as an
example of commercialised sporting event. If yes, ask
them to list some commercial elements of the Olympic
Games.
7. Students identify the commercial and non-commercial
elements of the Games.
Unit 8 Olympism : Is it
fulfilled?
Objective: students should be able to:
Page 12
Extended activity: Teacher may divide the
students into two sides, one look for
commercial elements and the other look for
non-commercial elements. The evidence they
find will facilitate a debate between the two
sides, titled “Today’s Olympic Games are
commercialised”.
2
1. understand the Olympism and the Olympic symbols,
2. assess the fulfillment of Olympism in recent decades, with
reference to some controversial issues in Olympic history.
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau
Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
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Page 13
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Activity:
1. Teacher shows students some photos of the Olympic
symbols (the rings, motto and torch relay),
2. Students suggest the values or ideals these symbols may
convey and check their answers from the sources given by
teacher, and
3. Teacher briefly explains the Olympism to students.
4. Students, divided into groups, discuss any one of the four
incidents and report to classmates.
Extended activity: Identify one social or
political issue that may affect the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games. Study its background,
nature and possible impact on the Games.
Comment on the issue from the perspective
of Olympism.
Personal, Social and Humanities Education Section,Education Bureau