AN OPTIMAL CURRICULUM FOR TEACHING ENGLISH TO ATHLETES

Athletes often need to have good English skills to communicate with foreigners for different purposes. As known, many athletes are not able to speak English fluently. To enhance the national athletes’ English proficiency, the governmental institutions arrange various English courses for them. This study reflects the long-term (over seven years) teaching process of English to the athletes in terms of the English course content, namely General English and Sports English, topics, local teacher vs foreign teacher, teaching methods, evaluation criteria, implementation of visual means and AI. The study results are based on the teachers’ observational method and students’ feedback. Most students liked the English course because they could speak English through discussions and conversations and learn new vocabulary, including General English and Sports English (ESP). The students liked the lessons’ topics (e.g. hotel/restaurant reservation, shopping, ordering food, and sports injuries) which were usually taught using PPTs, handouts, Youtube, and Kahoot. AI as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grammarly, Alexa, etc. was recently implemented in the teaching of athletes as well, facilitating the teaching and learning process and making it more effective and fun. Most athlete students were satisfied to have both a local and foreign teacher for the former could provide explanations in Chinese and the latter could help them to overcome the language barrier and gain confidence in speaking English. Most of the athlete students were motivated to improve their English to communicate internationally.