TASK SUBMITTED BY Alberto Lanzat- Session 8

Reading for gist / detail- Type of passage: Expository text- Definition of terms- Statistics
Non-linguistic areas: Physical Education- Mathematics
Content: Basketball terms

Stage 1: Before reading- Activation activities

Activity 1
I will give them a list of famous basketball players from the Spanish league or the NBA, and I
will ask them to classify them according to the five typical positions on the court:

Pau Gasol (LA Lakers)- Berni Rodríguez (Unicaja) - Raúl López (Real Madrid)
Fran Vázquez (Barça) - José Manuel Calderón (Toronto Raptors)- Ricky Rubio (DKV )
Sergio Rodríguez (Portland Trail Blazers) - Jaka Lakovic (Barça)- Felipe Reyes (Real Madrid)
Rudy Fernández (Portland Trail Blazers) - Marc Gasol (Memphis Grizzlies)

Point guard Shooting guard Small forward Power forward Centre


Alberto Lanzat 2009

In the previous activity, students will be exposed to the vocabulary already presented, and they
will simply have to classify the players, without any real production yet. Knowing all or most of
the players will increase the motivation factor.

Activity 2

After they have completed this warm-up activity, they will be asked to match these pictures with
some basketball-related terms.

Double Dribble Travel Steal Rebound Block

Assist Personal foul Technical foul Free throw Field goal

The existence of true cognates in this exercise will help its successful completion. For the other
terms, pooling knowledge in small groups will also be of assistance.


Alberto Lanzat 2009

Stage 2: While- reading activities- Development activities

As a follow-up of the activation activities, I will ask students to match the following definitions
with the previous terms. Most of the vocabulary will be either known to the students, simple to
infer or unnecessary for the completion of the chart.

Activity 1

1. _______________ have to take the ball out and plan an "attack", which means to pass
the ball to a player and he passes on to another player and so on till a player shoots the
basketball. ___________ can be small, but they have to be very fast.
2. __________________ are a little bit taller and slower than ________________ . They
have to make good shots from far distances (like three-point lines).
3. _________________ are taller than both _________________ and
_________________. They are the team's most flexible player, doing everything from
rebounding and assisting to scoring.
4. _________________ are usually the strongest players who play inside the 3 point line.
Their job is to receive rebounds from under the basket and score in the other team's
basket.
5. _________________ will usually be the tallest player on the team. They score close to
the basket, rebound and block shots on the defensive end.

Activity 2

a. __________ is a shot made inside the three point line. __________ are worth 2 points.
b. __________ is a basketball throw from the _________ line following a foul. Each
_________ made is worth one point.
c. _________________ is any contact which causes a disadvantage committed by a
player of the other team.
d. _________________ is a violation of certain basketball rules. They include:

fighting with another player

yelling and / or insulting another player or an official

e. _____________ is the act of catching the basketball after a missed shot.

f. _____________ is to pass the ball to a teammate, who shoots and scores.
g. _____________ is to take the ball away from a person who is dribbling, shooting or
passing without committing a foul.
h. _________________ is when a player dribbles the ball and picks it up and then
dribbles it again without shooting or passing it.
i. Dribbling the ball with two hands is also a _________________.
j. _________________ is when a player in possession of the ball moves both feet
without dribbling the ball.


Alberto Lanzat 2009

 Activity 3

In order to integrate Physical Education with Maths, students will be asked to scan the
following official statistics for all Spanish players on the NBA and select the best player in
each category. The information is authentic and has been extracted from
sports.espn.go.com/nba/

Abbreviations
Opp. Opposite team BLK Blocks
Min. Minutes played OFF Offensive
FG Field goals DEF Defensive
3P 3-point goals TOT Total
FT Free throws ASTS Assists
STL Steals PTS Points

Statistics from their latest NBA game

J.M. Calderón

P. Gasol

S. Rodríguez

R. Fernández

M. Gasol

The best scorer in free throws is ______________________

The best scorer in field goals is ______________________
The best scorer in three-point goals is ______________________
The best total scorer is ______________________
The player with the highest number of steals is ______________________
The player with the highest number of blocks is ______________________
The player with the highest number of offensive rebounds is ______________________
The player with the highest number of deffensive rebounds is ______________________

Alberto Lanzat 2009
The player with the highest number of assists is ______________________
The player with the highest number of offensive rebounds is ______________________

Stage 3: After-reading activities

Students will be asked to log on to acb.com and create a similar chart for the players
from the Spanish basketball league who were listed in the first activity.

After having completed the previous activity, it will be now their chance to produce a
chart similar to the ones they will have to create in future for this or other non-linguistic
subjects. It is an authentic web-based task, but also feasible without access to the web as
long as screen shots are printed out for the students working in groups, or simply
projected by means of a beamer.


Alberto Lanzat 2009