Globalsport/Teacher Notes/Culture Community

Rugby World Cup: Hosting a Global Sporting Event

Exploring the impact of a global sporting event.

Overview  |  Introduction  |  Spaces and Places  |  Culture and Community  |  Time and Change  |  Teacher Notes

Rugby World Cup: Culture and Community

This strand follows on from the Spaces and Places work, but can also stand alone if you as the teacher decide to focus on this aspect of the project first or exclusively.  In Culture and Community the students look at how people are affected by the Rugby World Cup tournament.  This picks up from the work in the introductory activities where students discussed how the school holidays were being changed.  In this strand they encounter other people in the New Zealand community who have different opinions and ideas about the tournament, many positive, some not so.  The students are introduced to the idea of empathy, and that varying ideas and opinions are 'different' rather than 'right' or 'wrong'. They complete a portfolio entry in which they endeavour to write as someone who has a different ideas about the Rugby World Cup from their own, and then try to explain their own opinions to this persona.  In the Who's all coming to the Rugby World Cup? section, students explore the different countries sending teams to the tournament, and design and put together a pamphlet aimed at New Zealanders to help them make the visiting teams and supporters feel welcome. This strand looks beyond venues and the game to the wider issues of hosting a major international sporting event.  As well as the discussion activities and continuing portfolio entries, the preparation of their pamphlet will involve students undertaking some research into the culture, history and language of a non-English speaking country which will be sending a team to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup in 2011. 

Time allocation

This strand is divided into two sections.  The total time allocated to this strand is nominally 7-8 hours of student time, however this could easily run to ten hours or possibly even more if you as the teacher opt to extend all the activities.

How will people be affected by the Rugby World Cup 

• The first activity Exploring different ideas... may take 30-45 minutes, however the discussion could easily develop over a longer period if you as the teacher support the dialogue. 
• Discussing from different viewpoints would take 40 minutes if the bare minimum of activities are worked through, however a more developed discussion using some of the supplied supported dialogue suggestions will extend this activity to between 60 and 90 minutes depending on student engagement.  The portfolio response activity will add a further 15-30 minutes (you will know the abilities of your class and the time they will need to develop their portfolio responses.  You could easily extend the portfolio response into creative and transactional writing teaching possibilities.)
  

Who's all coming to the Rugby World Cup?

• The atlas activity Where are all the teams coming from? will take able geographers only around 10-15 minutes, while less able students will easily take 20 minutes or more.  Extension activities are suggested with this task.
• Which team's supporters should the host country look after most? is another discussion activity.  At its most basic level it could be worked through in 15 minutes by a class, however a teacher supported approach (suggestions are given) this could easily become a debate of upwards of 45 minutes.

• The Bringing people together at the Rugby World Cup pamphlet design activity will probably take about three to four hours of learner time. Details on the use of that time are attached to the activity.
• The final reflection activity will take up to one hour.

Objectives

By the completion of the unit students will be able to: Explain that different people may have different ideas about the Rugby World Cup based on their beliefs, and how they will be affected by the event Describe some of the reasons why different people may be in favour of the event being held in New Zealand while others are not convinced. Discuss the idea of empathy and describe their own experiences exploring different viewpoints about the Rugby World Cup List a number of countries which will be sending national teams to the Rugby World Cup 2011 Discuss how New Zealand's role as the host nation implies a responsibility to ensure that visiting teams and supporters are well looked after, and why this is important for New Zealand as well as the success of the tournament Reflect on their own opinions about the Rugby World Cup and how it might affect them.

How will people be affected by the Rugby World Cup?

Objectives

At the end of this activity you should be able to discuss how and why people might have different opinions about how hosting the Rugby World Cup will affect them and New Zealand

The New Zealand Government considers the Rugby World Cup 2011 to be a very important event for the country, and has even appointed a Rugby World Cup Minister to help the planning for the tournament to run smoothly. From the starter activities you are already aware that the government has changed the school holidays to cut down traffic flows in the major centres while the knock-out stage of the Rugby World Cup is being played. The event will cause a lot of disruption to people's normal activities during the spring season of 2011. Lots of people have very different ideas about the Rugby World Cup.

For this first activity it may be useful to scaffold these instructions with the students - some children will find a picture on the board more useful to follow than the first written instruction. It may also be helpful for many children to have a class wide initial brainstorm discussion about these points.

Activity

Exploring different people's ideas and feelings about the Rugby World Cup Divide a sheet of paper in half. On one side put the heading 'People I think would support having Rugby World Cup matches in their town'. On the other side put the heading 'People I think might not want to have Rugby World Cup matches in their town'. Think about different people who have different jobs. Who might like to have lots of tourists visiting? Why? People with these occupations might want their town to host Rugby World Cup matches. List people with these jobs (or these interests - like rugby fans!) under the supporting side heading. Come up with at least five ideas. On the other hand, there will be people who might be worried about having Rugby World Cup matches staged in their town. What could their reasons be? Put these ideas down on the other side of your paper. See how many you can come up with. Overall do you think there would be more people who wanted matches played in their town, or more people who'd be against it? Would there be many people who didn't feel strongly either way do you think? What are your reasons? Discuss your ideas with the people around you.

Adaptation

This activity is easily adapted by removing all references to rugby and Rugby World Cup and replacing them with the desired sporting event. For example the second bullet point could be rewritten simply to adapt it to the summer Olympics: Think about different people who have different jobs. Who might like to have lots of tourists visiting? Why? People with these occupations might want their town to be a venue for one of the Olympic events such as rowing or sailing. List people with these jobs (or these interests - like rowing or sailing fans!) under the supporting side heading. Come up with at least five ideas.

You may have found that other people may have similar ideas to your own, or that theirs are actually quite different. That's not a problem because there are no 'right' or 'wrong' ideas about these issues. In the next activity you will need to work in a small group with others from your class. You could work with a group of up to six people.  Your teacher may want to put you in a particular group for this activity or you may be able to choose your own group to work with.

As the teacher you may want to assign students to particular names in the activity below, to ensure that there is a good cross section of characters: otherwise if you opt to broaden the activity to a wider class discussion you may find that six boys have picked 'Mike' and seven girls have picked 'Laura', and so there will be a lot of doubling up. There are more characters in support of the Rugby World Cup than against it, but by just having the names as links (rather than opinions) a random element has been preserved.

Activity

Discussing the Rugby World Cup from different viewpoints Choose a person's name from the list below and click on it. The link will take you to a few details of an imaginary character who has an opinion about the Rugby World Cup being held in New Zealand. What are your character's feelings about the Rugby World Cup? How strong do you think those feelings are? (For example, are they very excited about it, or only interested when it affects them?) What are you character's main reasons for how they feel? (Do you think their ideas are fair?) Share your character's details and opinions with the group you are working with. Listen to what their characters' opinions are about the Rugby World Cup When you have heard all the others' ideas, were there any that you'd not thought about before? Which of the other characters do you think your character would have agreed with? (Who might they have supported in a debate?) Were there any arguments that might have made your character change his or her mind? (Why or why not?) Which of the arguments you heard was the most convincing do you think (That doesn't mean you have to agree with it - although you might!) Share your thoughts with the others in the group.

 

James

Nadia

Wiremu

Sam

Rangi

Heather

Dion

Sara

Trevor

Anthea

Kevin

Temepara

Mike

Shona

David

Allan

Lydia

Sione

Dannielle

Ben

Olivia

Emily

Laura

George

Darryl

Rimupae

Laura

Peter

Adaptation

The process of this activity is suitable for transferring to other sporting events however the resources used will need to be generated again. The characters used for this activity are unique to New Zealand and the Rugby World Cup scenario. Updating these to other characters with similar opinions and replacing any references to the RWC with your sporting event will make this usable in another context.

There are all sorts of possibilities for developing the discussion. It's possibly easier if all the characters in the links above have been shared out among the students. They can choose to add information of their own if you like. Students should think about their person’s opinions on the Rugby World Cup being hosted in New Zealand and can position themselves on a continuum that you set up pro←→anti. You could ask them to explain to the class or just the people near them why their character feels the way that they do about the Rugby World Cup. The class will end up with more people supporting than against the Rugby World Cup, but there’ll be a few in the middle as well. It may be useful for some students for you to keep a record on the whiteboard, that they can refer to, of the different reasons people had for and against the Rugby World Cup. Development of the activity could include:

• A six chairs debate where there are three chairs on each side, and only people sitting on the chairs can contribute to the debate – if a child has an idea they shoulder tap someone on a chair and take their place.
  
• A continuum discussion where the class form a continuum (strongly agree↔strongly disagree) on an issue, then the continuum is folded in half and the pairs debate the issue.
  
• A neutral chair debate where you act as the neutral chair and the children take a side on the issue and try to undermine the other side’s argument by asking them to explain the reasons for their opinions. This can be extended by placing the opposing sides into concentric circles, pairing individuals up. They can then role play different people affected by the decision. The concentric circles activity is very powerful: students on the outside circle who are pro the Rugby World Cup are each paired with a student on the inside circle who is anti or ambivalent towards the tournament. Each gets 30 seconds to explain why the feel the way they do. Then the circles rotate so that new pairs are formed and the process repeats several times. You can then get the circles to swap roles, so that those on the inside circle are now supporters of the tournament in NZ and the outer circle have to argue why it’s a bad or unbalanced thing By this time the circles will have heard enough arguments from the opposing side to be able to do this effectively.
  

At the end you can ask them several questions:

• What position did you find easiest to argue? (and why? Was it your own belief or not?)
  
• What position did you find most difficult?
  
• What were the most convincing arguments for you?
  
• How did it feel having to argue from a position that was different from your own?
  
• How has this process made you look at New Zealand’s hosting of the tournament differently?

Discussion

Hearing some other voices... Your teacher may decide to take the discussions different groups have been having and broaden these into a whole class activity. If this happens, you will be taking the role of the person you've already been working with. Try to be as 'real' as you can as that person, but also try to listen carefully to other class members' characters' ideas. Some ideas will be like your own, some will be like your character's, soem will be taking different sides and some you might not have thought of before. The key thing to remember is that there are lots of different positions that people can take on an issue.

Portfolio Activity

Someone else's shoes... The idea of 'putting yourself in someone else's shoes', means to try to understand how a person might be feeling about a situation. It doesn't mean how you might feel in that situation, but how they might be feeling, remembering that they are a different person to you with different thoughts and feelings. This process is called empathy.   In this reflective exercise you are to write pretending that you are someone else who has a different opinion about the Rugby World Cup from your own thoughts. It might be your character from the last exercise, or perhaps one of the other characters from the group you worked with. For example, if you love rugby and can't wait for the Rugby World Cup to start, try writing as someone who isn't at all interested and is annoyed at all the money being spent to upgrade stadiums. Or if you don't care about rugby, try imagining yourself as someone who does, or someone whose business is going to be helped by all the visitors to the tournament. In your portfolio put yourself in that person's shoes and write a paragraph explaining how they are feeling about the Rugby World Cup and why they're feeling that way. Explain their feelings as though you mean them. When you have finished, write a response to that person explaining your own feelings. You don't have to convince the other person that they're wrong: the key thing is to understand that people can have quite different ideas about an issue, and that every person has reasons for their opinions that seem fair enough to them. Add the word 'empathy' to your glossary and write an definition for it in your own words. Choose two other words that came up in your discussion that you found interesting and put them in your glossary as well (with your explanation of what they mean.)

There are possiblities for extending this portfolio entry into a longer transactional or creative writing exercise as the students explore different perspectives. Another possibility is for the students to swap their character's writing with another class member's, and write a response to someone else's writing.

The glossary entries could include words like 'hospitality' (the industry) and 'accommodation', 'tourism', "economic', 'benefit', 'cost' and other words associated with the anticipated influx of visitors to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup.

Who's all coming to the Rugby World Cup?

Objectives

at the end of this activity you should be able to discuss the different teams coming to the Rugby World Cup in 2011, and have created a resource to help New Zealanders make a foreign team and its supporters feel more welcome when they visit a New Zealand town or city.

 

The map shows all the countries that have been to previous Rugby World Cup tournaments and the host countries for these tournaments.

Of the twenty teams coming to New Zealand in 2011, only one - Russia - has not been to a previous Rugby World Cup.

This first activity is really an opportunity for some atlas work - finding which countries are where - but also allows opportunities for extension for more able students. If you opt to let the children work in groups, careful monitoring will be needed to ensure that the rugby fanatics or geography enthusiasts don't dominate and do all the activities while the others sit back.

In terms of extension activities, given that it's a 'World Cup' some students might notice that not a lot of the world is represented. You could talk about the qualifying process - that there are group matches to decide qualifying for different parts fo the world, much as there are for the FIFA World Cup. It could also be explored that the strongest nations - with the exception of France - are largely former British Dominions (Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) and the nations of the British Isles. In these countries the game of rugby union is one of the most important national sports (or the most important - in the case of New Zealand!). It's interesting as well that the strongest football nations barely feature in the Rugby World Cup. There's all sorts of possibilities for discussion here and ideas such as the transfer of a game and the wealth of nations impacting their success or otherwise, that could also be picked up in the Time and Change strand.

Activity

Where are all the teams coming from? Use an atlas to find where all the countries are that are coming to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The countries attending will be: Pool A: New Zealand, France, Tonga, Canada, Japan Pool B: Argentina, England, Scotland, Georgia and either Romania or Uruguay (one of these teams will qualify in late 2010) Pool C: Australia, Ireland, Italy, Russia, United States Pool D: South Africa, Wales, Fiji, Samoa, Namibia Using your atlas and the map above, which teams which have previously qualified for the Rugby World Cup will not be playing in the 2011 tournament? Which team has played in two finals, but not won the Rugby World Cup? Which teams - based on past performance - have the best chance of winning the 2011 event? Which team is probably the least likely to win? In which countries do you think Rugby might be an important sport? (What are your reasons for thinking this?) Which countries do you think will have the most supporters travelling to New Zealand in 2011 to cheer on their teams? (What are your reasons for this? Think about not only the importance of rugby in different countries, but also the populations of those countries (how many people they have) and how wealthy the people living in the different countries are.)

Adaptation

This activity can easily be adapted to other large sporting events. For example the draw for the 2010-11 UEFA Champions League is available online [1] as is the draw for the 2011 Cricket World Cup [2]. Replacing the pools above with the relevant information from another event and rewording the questions as appropriate will enable this to be reused.

Discussion

Which team's supporters should the host country look after most? Read the following statements and think about which ones you agree with, which ones you disagree with and why. 1. As the host country New Zealand must ensure that all supporters feel equally as important. This is only fair. 2. While the host country must make everyone feel welcome, New Zealand should particularly look after the supporters from countries which normally send the most tourists to New Zealand. New Zealand must make sure that these groups have a great time so that tourists will keep coming from these countries in the future. 3. While the host country must make everyone feel welcome, New Zealand should particularly look after the supporters of teams which are likely to at least make the quarter finals of the tournament. These supporters will be here longer than the supporters of other teams which get knocked out early, so they'll spend more money overall on accommodation and restaurants and tourist activities, so this group should be the priority. 4. While the host country must make everyone feel welcome, New Zealand should particularly look after the visiting team which has the most supporters who travel to New Zealand. New Zealand should do this because this is the biggest group, so they'll spend the most money in the country while they're here, so for this reason they should be looked after most. 5. While the host country must make everyone feel welcome, New Zealand should particularly look after the supporters who have travelled the furthest to get here. New Zealand should look after these groups because they made the effort to come this far, and so they must be keen to see New Zealand as well as their team. 6. While the host country must make everyone feel welcome, New Zealand should particularly look after the supporters from countries that don't normally have a lot to do with New Zealand. New Zealanders should take this chance to show off their country, so these people will go home with good feelings about New Zealand, which might mean more tourists would come from these countries in the future. 7. While the host country must make everyone feel welcome, New Zealanders should make a special effort to welcome supporters who don't speak English. These people might feel very out of place here, but if the locals try to make them feel at home, they will go back to their own country happy. This will be good for New Zealand in the long term. Which of the statements do you most agree with? If you had to put the statements in order from most true to least true, what order would you put them in and why? Discuss your ideas with the people sitting near you.

I'd be inclined to split the class into small groups for this discussion - at least initially - and see what differences come up before moving the groups into a whole class situation. You are more likely to get more participation as well with the students in small groups. While many students will plump for statement 1 as the one they most agree with (the majority of Year 5-8 students having a strong sense of social justice) as the teacher you may need to massage the discussion a bit. You can play the devil's advocate, or simply explain that they have been asked to rank the statements: so after statement 1, which do they think is the most true (what if there hadn't been an option of statement 1?) I suspect you could possibly get some quite heated debate going, particularly if people start imagining themselves as the visitors. You may be able to role play here or assist in role plays "I'm from Australia - I holiday in New Zealand every two or three years: I'm practically a local, so I would expect to be made more welcome than somebody who's only coming to New Zealand for the rugby." as against "This is my one big holiday of a lifetime, coming to the other side of the world to see the Rugby World Cup and New Zealand - I'd hate to think that because I can only afford to come once, people won't look care about me as much as people who have the money to come back again and again."

This activity could be concluded by directing the students' thoughts towards the next part of the unit: how could New Zealanders look after the visitors? A preliminary discussion could be useful in terms of setting up the students' ideas.

For many teams and supporters, the Rugby World Cup 2011 will be their first time to visit New Zealand.  What sorts of things do you think it might be helpful for these visitors to know about the people of New Zealand and the places they are visiting?  For the locals of the host cities, what might it be helpful to know about the nations whose teams and supporters will be arriving to attend the matches?  In the following activity, you will work either on your own or in pairs be putting together a resource to help this process.

Activity

Bringing people together at the Rugby World Cup Imagine you have been asked by the city council of a New Zealand city to prepare a pamphlet to help the citizens of the city to know a little bit about the country and people of a visiting team and supporters, in order to be able to make them feel welcome. The pamphlet is particularly going to be for the locals to be able to understand and support teams whose players and fans may not speak English. What might help the locals be more welcoming? There are a few things that could clearly help knowing where in the world the people are from (this might include a map and a picture of the country's flag) knowing a little bit about the country, its people and its history you might be able to find out a little about the country's rugby history it could be very useful to find out how they say things like 'hello', 'goodbye' or even 'welcome to New Zealand' or 'Go Georgia' (or Russia, or France or wherever) These ideas are there to start you off. The council has asked you to produce a pamphlet or card that can be handed out to or picked up by the locals, to help them help the visitors to have a great time in the city. You will need to do some research in your library or online using the internet to help you find information for your pamphlet. The list below shows which non-English speaking teams will be playing in which cities. You can decide which city and team(s) you want to prepare a pamphlet for. This activity will take you some time. You will have to find your information, and then design and produce your pamphlet. Your teacher will talk with you about how much time you have and when your completed pamphlet needs to be ready.

This is a complex task, and the ability level of your students will dictate how you approach this activity, the length of time you give the students to complete the task, and the complexity of the pamphlet they produce. Below the table is a 'self assessment' box: the students - assisted by you - need to work out what they think should go into their pamphlets.

You will need to assist the class to set some parameters on what they are going to try to do. I think that you will need to allow at least half an hour of supported discussion time as they work out what should go into the pamphlet and what they're going to assess themselves on. The 'design and production' phase of their pamphlets maybe somewhere between one and three hours of learner time, depending on the ability of the students and whether they're working singly or in pairs. It's important to build in time at the end for their self and/or peer assessment (probably another 15-30 minutes, again, depending on the class's ability level.)

For the language aspects of the pamphlet, this link has some helpful online translating resources

Pool match venues for non English speaking teams (matches 1-4)

Argentina	Christchurch	Invercargill	Christchurch	Palmerston North
Fiji	Rotorua	Wellington	Auckland	Hamilton
France	Auckland	Napier	Auckland	Wellington
Georgia	Dunedin	Christchurch	Palmerston North	Palmerston North
Italy	Christchurch	Nelson	Nelson	Dunedin
Japan	Auckland	Hamilton	Whangarei	Napier
Namibia	Rotorua	Rotorua	Auckland	New Plymouth
Romania	Invercargill	Invercargill	Dunedin	Palmerston North
Russia	New Plymouth	Nelson	Rotorua	Christchurch
Samoa	Rotorua	Hamilton	Auckland	Auckland
Tonga	Auckland	Whangarei	Whangarei	Wellington

Adaptation

This activity can easily be adapted to other global sporting events. Using the 2011 Cricket World Cup [3] as an example, matching the teams to the playing location in a table similar to that used above, the activity can be adapted for reuse.

Self Assessment

You need to think about how you will judge how effective your completed pamphlet design is. You need to decide what is important and how you will measure how well this is done. Some things to consider are: how eye catching is the design? (after all, if no one picks it up and reads it, it's not much good is it?) what the message of the pamphlet is and how well does it get across to the reader? how much information is contained in the pamphlet, and how easy is it for people to use? You need to think about what a good pamphlet is going to look like and what it's going to need to have in it. Share your ideas with the people around you, and then your teacher will help the class to put all the ideas on a display so that you can agree on what you are going to be doing. When you have completed your design you should be able to assess your own work yourself, or as a class you might decide to assess each other's work.

Portfolio Activity

Upload a photo of your pamphlet or a PDF version to your eportfolio. Using the assessment criteria you developed as a class, describe with examples from your work, how well you think you completed this activity.

Reflection

Does it matter? In this strand of the unit you've thought about how different people can have different ideas about whether an event is a good thing or a bad thing. For the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2011, there are fair arguments both supporting it and saying that it's not a good thing. In creating your pamphlet you've also had to think about people from another culture visiting New Zealand when they travel here to support their country's team. Most of these people will not have been to New Zealand before, and most will probably not visit here again.

Portfolio Activity

Glossary: Add the words 'citizen' and 'pamphlet' to your glossary, and give definitions for these words. Put one of the greeting words you've found from a different language into your glossary too, along with how to say the word (who says all the words in your glossary have to be in English?) Reflection: Write a new reflective post explaining what your opinion is about the Rugby World Cup and how it affects your community and New Zealand. You might think it's going to be fabulous for the country, or you might think it's a huge waste of money. You might see how businesses could benefit, or you might feel that the money could have been used elsewhere. You might see both sides of the argument. Explain what your thoughts are, and your reasons. (Remember - you can't be wrong - and your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's!) Questions: In a new post, write down your answers to these questions in your portfolio, and add any other ideas you feel are important about how New Zealand should be preparing for the Rugby World Cup. How much effort do you think New Zealand and New Zealanders should be putting in to try to make these people feel welcome? How important is it do you think? Why? If you think it is important, what could be done to help make it happen? (you've made a pamphlet, but that's just one idea)

This final activity for this strand of the unit needs to be given a reasonable amount of time and pre-writing support, possibly with discussion and sharing of ideas. Including the pre-writing, I would imagine this will take around an hour of learner time.