English Readers

English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

Classroom implementation

Listening focuses on developing the key skills of:  PARTS, A B AND C

• listening for gist, and
• listening for specific details What are they?
It aims to widen students’ range of vocabulary, to improve The units are organized into two or three parts (A, B and
their awareness of clear usage and grammar in line with sometimes C), each with their own audio track number
B1+ expectations; and also, where appropriate, to increase to identify the recording. The recordings are unscripted
their cultural awareness of the English-speaking world. responses to prompt questions which are explained in the
bold rubric. Where necessary, the bold rubric also gives
There are twenty units divided across five sections:
some context to the recording. Each part has between two
1. Where are you from? Personal topics and self-description. and four exercises which test both listening for general
2. Where are you going? Issues affecting the traveller. understanding, and listening for specific details.
3. What do you need to know? Information exchange in
the English-speaking environment. Suggested implementation of pre-listening:
4. What do you do? Work and study. 1. Select a student to read the bold rubric, then ask the
others to predict the language that the speakers in the
5. How do you spend your free time? Hobbies, socializing,
recording might use.
eating out, etc.
2. Make sure the class understands as much as possible
All the units in Listening have the same structure and of the context before playing the recording. For example,
recurring features. Below you can find explanations the speaker might be going to talk about their hometown,
of how these features can be implemented in the but the rubric might also explain that they are going to
classroom. Each time you see this symbol  in the contrast it with where they live. Ask the students what
explanations below, it indicates a new section of the unit. expressions they might use to contrast two different
places (e.g. different from, not like).
3. Also ask the students to identify what else the rubric
tells them, such as age, nationality, gender or interests
 BEFORE YOU LISTEN of the speaker. While these may not always be relevant
to the actual content of the recording, they may fire
What is it? the students’ imaginations in predicting answers and
Each unit begins with an explanation of what recordings the producing language.
students will hear in this unit, and some Before you listen 4. Where students are listening for key words/phrases,
questions directed at the student. The questions are the you may want to identify the sorts of key words
same, or similar, to the ones the speakers are responding to (numbers, comparatives, adjectives, place names, job
throughout the unit. titles, etc.) in advance, and elicit those in isolation before
playing the recordings. You can do this with photos (e.g.
Suggested implementation: contrastive pictures of the city and countryside for Unit
1. Ask the questions, personalizing the theme for students 3), or realia (e.g. a holiday brochure for Unit 6, or a hotel
and getting them to think about the topic – which you tariff card for Unit 8).
can then discuss or brainstorm for vocabulary. 5. Use the students’ own experiences: if the recording is
2. Get students to ask the questions of each other. about becoming a member of a gym and one of your
3. Highlight/clarify key basic vocabulary for the unit. students has joined a gym, get them to talk about it in
front of the other students. If the student alights upon
4. Write the questions on card, cut the words up and have
any target vocabulary, you can note this on the board.
students reassemble them.
6. You can take a more direct approach to eliciting the
5. Write model answers (perhaps your own) on card and get
target vocabulary by asking students to brainstorm
the students to match them with the questions.
the type of vocabulary/language that the speaker might
6. Use the picture in the Before you start section to initiate use, allowing students to pre-read the listening tasks,
the conversation. or picking key words from the transcript before the
listening and using them as the basis of a quiz or a
crossword.
7. Consider whether the exercises which follow the
listening are testing listening for general understanding
or listening for specific details, and direct your students

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

appropriately before playing the recording. Play it two or 3. Clear usage: These boxes highlight words, phrases and
three times if necessary. grammar which can cause problems for the listener and
8. The exercises do not have examples but you may want to will help the students fully understand the recording.
do the first question where possible with your students. You may therefore want to highlight this usage during
Play and pause after the first question so that students pre-listening.
are sure what they are doing. 4. Useful vocabulary and phrases: These boxes identify,
clarify and extend vocabulary from the unit. They can
Suggested aproaches for post-listening: be used pre- or post-listening as a starting point for
1. The actual work of listening will be done by students discussion, or to elicit further examples of the vocabulary
independently, so try to allow a healthy amount of group.
pairwork/groupwork in the surrounding activity to
provide balance to the lesson. Some of these exercises in
the unit will work better as individual activities and some  FURTHER LISTENING
as pair/group activities.
What is it?
2. The following types of exercises lend themselves well to
pair work or group work: Further listening provides a website link (www.collinselt.com/
• inferring meaning listening) where you can find the transcript and recording of
further speakers on the topic of the unit.
• paraphrasing
• discussion questions
Suggested implementation:
3. The following types of exercises are more suited to
1. You can use this material in class in the same way as in
individual work:
the unit, creating your own gap fill, matching and sorting
• inserting missing words/phrases into the transcript exercises using the transcript.
• summarising
2. Set the recording as homework, asking students to
• finding evidence to back up claims made in text identify specific aspects of the language used and check
4. If students are working individually, allow them time to their answers themselves against the transcript.
check their answers with a partner before feeding back
to the class.
 WRAPPING UP
The content of Listening is guided by the Common
 FEATURES European Framework of Reference for Languages at level
B1+. You can use the framework as a way of setting targets
What are they?
for your classes and monitoring the progress of individual
All the units contain feature boxes providing extra students. But you may also get students themselves to
information and support for the content of the recordings. consider what can-do statements they feel able to assert
These serve well as fillers if you have a few spare minutes after each unit.
during the lesson or for providing independent homework
1. Ask students to work together in small groups and write
ideas.
down three or four can-do statements for the lesson.
I can understand people talking about their extended
Suggested implementation:
family and their family history.
1. COBUILD CHECK: Thi feature provides real world
I can understand people describing their hometown and
examples of the use of target vocabulary from the Collins
explaining how it has changed over time.
COBUILD dictionaries and English corpus. Ask your
students to extend this list if they have heard the word or 2. The groups can then compare statements with those of
phrase used elsewhere, building their own corpus, noting another group and see if they feel they have made the
down the use of certain words and phrases they hear same progress.
outside the classroom. 3. Always encourage students to keep an active record of
2. Did you know? Speech bubbles appear at varying points their can-do achievements and follow up with you if they
through the book and highlight phrases that may have are unsure.
peculiar meaning in the context of the recording. They
are often incidental to understanding the recording but
you may want to highlight these pre- or post-listening
and ask students if they have heard these phrases outside
the classroom.

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

Unit 1: Your family

SUMMARY Using Part A (track 01)

You can use this summary to guide the learning objectives The activities below can be introduced during Part A.
and target setting for your class. 1. Get a student to read the rubric for Part A about Alex
and ask the class what sort of subjects Alex might talk
Can-do statements
about (e.g. family members, where they live, what they
By the end of this unit, students will be able to say: do, whether he likes them, etc.).
• I can understand people giving details of extended 2. If you have a map of the UK in the classroom, don’t
families. forget to identify the places mentioned in the rubric –
• I can follow people describing complex relationships and return to the map after the recording when Alex has
within families. mentioned Southampton and London.
• I can understand some complex idiomatic language. 3. Get students to pre-read the questions 1–5 of Exercise
Skill focus 1 and discuss in pairs how Alex might express himself
Listening for general understanding: for each question (e.g. for question 1 close by, far away,
Part A 1 , Part B 1 miles away, in another country; for question 3 It’s sad
that…, I’d prefer it if …., because, etc.). Feed back to the
Listening for specific details and information:
whole class and write their ideas on the board.
Part A 2 3 , Part B 2 3
4. By Exercise 3, students will have heard the recording at
Vocabulary
least twice. See if they can work in pairs to answer the
Family: sibling, aunt, uncle, step-brother, sister-in-law, questions before you play it again.
half-brother, adopted, divorced, separated
Idioms: as a matter of fact, loads and loads, don’t get me Using COBUILD CHECK: close
wrong In this COBUILD CHECK the word close (/kləʊs/) is used as
close as an adjective, close by as a phrase an adverb and as an adjective within a phrase.
Usage 1. Make sure that students are clear about the different
will for recurring events: we’ll go up to Derbyshire pronunciations of close: /kləʊs/ as an adjective and
imagine/suppose for qualification: I suppose that’s how adverb, and /kləʊz/ as a verb and noun (in almost all
we look at it cases).
2. Write the statements from COBUILD CHECK: close on
card and cut them up into individual words. Get students
to work in pairs to reassemble the statements. For clarity,
CLASSROOM EXTENSION IDEAS use different coloured card for each statement, or give
one statement to each group.
You can use some or all of these ideas to check and
enhance your students’ understanding as they work their 3. You can use the second COBUILD CHECK: family
way through Unit 1 of Listening B1+ Intermediate in class. relationships in the same way.

Using Before you listen Using Part B (track 02)

You can use the Before you listen questions in a variety of Part B focuses on Patrick’s description of the nature of a
ways. large extended family. Once you have completed all the
exercises, the activity below will allow the students the
1. Create a gap fill exercise with the key words/phrases
opportunity to use the language.
(only child, aunts, nephews, close and little contact, etc.)
on a separate handout. 1. Ask students to write the names of extended family
members (uncle, aunt, cousin, half-brother, etc.) on
2. Allow students to ask each other the questions and get
separate pieces of paper. It doesn’t matter if they don’t
them to report their partner’s answers to the class.
have that member in their own family.
3. Create a mingle activity by getting students to write their
2. Collect them up, and put them in a hat, box or bowl.
answers to the questions on a piece of paper – but not to
include their name! Collect their answers and redistribute 3. Pick them out one by one and ask the students to
them to other students. The students can then stand up describe that family member to the class in thirty
and move around the class asking questions to find the seconds. (Students will have to discard family members
person whose card they have. they don’t have in their family.)

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

4. If you want to make it competitive you can create a Sunderland

points system. Students are awarded one point for each Lisa went to school in Sunderland.
of the following: a description of personality, appearance Sheffield
and a funny story about each relative. As this is a Lisa went to university in Sheffield when she was
listening class, get the other students to mark the eighteen.
speaker, but you can be the final arbiter. Scotland
5. Another way of playing this game is to put adjectives Lisa’s mum is from Scotland
of personality on separate pieces of paper, and get the Birmingham
students to think of relatives who have that personality Lisa’s dad is from Birmingham.
trait. 2. Lisa says that people think Geordies are quite loud and a
6. With more independent students this exercise can be bit brash and that they like to drink a lot, but she thinks
done in small groups. that is not true. She says Geordies ‘aren’t unlike any
other groups of people in the country’ although she
Using Further listening
admits they have a ‘bad reputation’.
In Further listening, at www.collinselt.com/listening, Lisa
3. Lisa says living in London is exciting. Although there is not
talks about her background in Newcastle and her life now
much space in your house or garden, money is spent on
in London. There is a worksheet below. You can download
the parks so there are always places to go.
the recording and use the worksheet in class, or set it for
homework.
The recording is 3 minutes 22 seconds long. The question MUSIC IN CLASS
about the significance of the various places is answered
Patrick refers to his family being like The Brady Bunch,
between 0.00 and 1.25. The question about the people is
an American TV series of the late 1960s and early 1970s,
answered between 1.25 and 2.13. The question about the
about a blended family of step-siblings and step-parents.
environment is answered between 2.13 and 3.22.
If you want music and songs in your classroom you might
The three questions are increasingly challenging because want to play the theme tune to the show. You can also
Lisa’s views are not straightforward. Allow students to work play short segments of the show (which are available on
in pairs or threes. Feed back to the whole class and use the www.youtube.com) and create a worksheet asking students
transcript (which you can also download from the same web to identify the relationships in the show.
address) to clarify.
As a counterpoint to The Brady Bunch, you could do the
Answers: same for The Addams Family, another 1960s American TV
1. London series, about a family of ghouls and spooks. If the students
Lisa was born in London and she has moved back there are familiar with both, which they might be from the film
for work. She says she is ‘settled’ in London. remakes, you can have a discussion about the importance
of family as a basis for drama. Ask students if there are any
Newcastle
family-based dramas in their own culture which have had
Lisa calls herself a ‘Geordie’ (a person from Newcastle).
such significance. For homework, you can ask students to
She grew up near Newcastle.
write about these dramas, identifying the various familial
relationships in each.

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

PHOTOCOPIABLES
Listen to Lisa’s story.
1. What is the significance of the places on the map for Lisa?

Newcastle
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

Scotland
____________________________________________ Sunderland
____________________________________________ ____________________________________________

____________________________________________ ____________________________________________
____________________________________________

Sheffield
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

Birmingham
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

London
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

How does she describe the differences/similarities between Newcastle (in the north) and London
(in the south)?

2. The people ________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________

3. The environment ________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

Unit 2: Your home town

SUMMARY 4. If students are from the same town they can work in
pairs or small groups.
You can use this summary to guide the learning objectives
and target setting for your class. 5. Monitor and ask questions about what the different
things represent.
Can-do statements 6. For feedback, allow willing students to present their
By the end of this unit, students will be able to say: mood boards to the class, or stick the posters to the wall
• I can understand people describing their home towns. and get students to wander around and ask each other
• I can follow descriptions of changes that have taken questions about their mood boards. (You might want to
place and are taking place now. leave that part until later in the lesson.)
• I can understand vocabulary for places in the town Using First speech bubble – page 8
and the city.
You can use these differences in US and UK English
• I can recognize differences in US and UK vocabulary vocabulary for a game.
for things in the environment.
1. Photocopy the Did you know? table below a few times
Skill focus and cut out the words (add a few more if you like).
Listening for general understanding: Put the pieces of paper in a hat, bowl or bag.
Part A 1 , Part B 1 3 2. Ask the students to memorize the words in the speech
Listening for specific details and information: bubble.
Part A 2 3 , Part B 2 4
3. Divide the class into two teams.
Vocabulary 4. Pick out one of the words from the hat and the first
Transport (US/UK English): railroad/railway, sidewalk/ student who can ‘translate’ the word from UK to US
pavement, gas/petrol English (or vice versa) wins the point for their team.
Town and country: suburbs, outskirts, urban, inner city, 5. The game can also be played in pairs if you photocopy
-ish (largish, smallish, reddish) more sheets.
Grammar
Using Second speech bubble – page 9 (track 03)
Present passive continuous: when the city is being
developed The speech bubble identifies Tonya’s use of a sarcastic tone
when she says “really good at in the states” (0.10 secs) to
Intonation refer to a lack of environmental awareness.
Sarcasm
1. Play the recording and ask the students to identify in what
way she sounds sarcastic (i.e. by stressing the word really).
2. Ask students to think of ways to sounds sarcastic.
CLASSROOM EXTENSION IDEAS The most obvious is to emphasize a particular word, but
students may want to consider what sorts of emphasis
You can use some or all of these ideas to check and enhance they could use, such as: high, low or inverse pitch;
your students’ understanding as they work their way pause and exaggeration; aspiration; flattening; sing-
through Unit 2 of Listening B1+ Intermediate in class. song sounds; nasalization. While they may not know
Using Before you listen these terms they may well be able to mimic the tone in
something they say.
Use the Before you listen questions to initiate the making of
a mood board of the students’ hometowns. 3. Photocopy the Second speech bubble worksheet below
and put students in pairs to practise saying the phrases to
1. Ask the students beforehand to bring in to the lesson
each other using a sarcastic tone.
photographs or other sorts of memories or realia
they could use to stick on a mood board about their 4. Monitor and feed back the best examples with the whole
hometown. class.

2. Give the students large pieces of paper (A3) on which to Using Clear usage: present passive continuous –
stick their photographs, etc. page 9
3. Tell students to add text to their boards: adjectives which 1. Ask students to look at the description of the present
describe their town, words which reflect their feelings, perfect continuous in the box and get them to write the
important places and dates, and so on. active forms of the passive examples given.

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

Trees are being cut down. = They are cutting down trees. Using Further listening
Houses are being bulldozed. = They are bulldozing the In Further listening, at www.collinselt.com/listening, Taressa
houses. talks about her background and the character of the
The transport system is being utilized. = They are state capitals of Queensland (Brisbane), New South Wales
utilizing the transport system. (Sydney) and Victoria (Melbourne). There is a worksheet
Shops are being closed. = They are closing shops. below. You can download the recording and use the
2. You can use the Clear usage: present passive continuous worksheet in class, or set it for homework.
worksheet, below, to get students to transform active The recording is 1 minute 10 seconds long.
sentences into passive ones. (Answers: 1. A supermarket
Allow students to work in pairs or threes to complete
is being built in my home town. 2. The trees in the park
the worksheet. Feed back to the whole class and use the
are being chopped down. 3. The high street is being
transcript (which you can also download from the same web
pedestrianized. 4. The pavements are being repaired.
address) to clarify.
5. The old school is being pulled down.)
3. Get students to think of passive sentences to describe Taressa describes Canberra as incredibly boring, Sydney as
changes that are currently taking place in their business-focussed, Melbourne as art-focussed, and Brisbane
neighbourhood, home town or country. Ask them to as backward but the best place to live.
exchange their examples with a partner or in a small
group.
MUSIC IN CLASS
4. Feed back the best examples with the whole class.
If you want music and songs in your classroom there are
Using Clear usage: talking about the past and the many songs about home towns:
future – page 10 • Bruce Springsteen – My Hometown
Use this Clear Usage to get the students to talk about where • Neko Case – Thrice All American
they have lived and where they would like to live. • Alicia Keys/Jay Z – Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken
1. Find pictures of different sorts of locations (the Down
mountains, the city, the countryside, near the sea, the • The Hollies – Ferry Cross the Mersey
suburbs, a small village, etc.) from magazines, attach • The Clash – London Calling
them to a sheet of paper and photocopy it so you have
and numerous rap songs like
one for each pair.
• GT Mayne – H.O.U.S.T.O.N.
2. Ask students to work in pairs to talk about the places
they have lived and where they have always wanted to You may also find others you would like to use.
live – using the pictures as a source of inspiration. Any of these songs can be used in class as a lyrics gap-fill
3. Partners can try and guess the locations that the other exercise. Alternatively you can ask students to work in pairs
person is talking about if they haven’t already told them. and on different songs to examine the singers’ feelings
towards their home towns, and how they express them.
4. Feed back with the whole class.
This can be done in class or for homework.

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

PHOTOCOPIABLES
Did you know?

railroad railway freeway motorway

track platform gas petrol

sidewalk pavement traffic circle roundabout

pavement tarmac intersection junction

divided dual
parking lot car park
highway carriageway

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

Clear usage: present passive continuous

Change these continuous sentences from active to passive:

1. They are building a supermarket in my home town. ___________________________________________________

2. They are chopping down the trees in the park. ___________________________________________________

3. They are pedestrianizing the high street. ___________________________________________________

4. They are repairing the pavements. ___________________________________________________

5. They are pulling down the old school. ___________________________________________________

Second speech bubble – Sarcasm

Work in pairs. Say these phrases using a sarcastic tone.

1. Well, that’s a really great job.

2. Don’t study too hard.
3. That was a fabulous meal.
4. Oh, you’re so generous.
5. Nice shoes.
6. I really appreciate the effort you made.
7. I couldn’t do it without you.
8. We were so worried about you.
9. It has been a great honour.
10. Thank you so much.
11. How can I ever repay you?
12. What a surprise, I really thought you’d pass that test.

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

PHOTOCOPIABLES
Listen to Taressa’s story.
1. Can you identify the cities which Taressa mentions?

(Austrialian capital)

Victoria

2. According to Taressa the character of each of the places is quite different. What words does she use to
describe them?

Brisbane ____________________________________________________________________________________

Sydney ____________________________________________________________________________________

Melbourne ____________________________________________________________________________________

Canberra ____________________________________________________________________________________

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

Unit 3: Your country

SUMMARY 4. One by one, get students to explain the differences and

similarities between the two countries, and allow other
You can use this summary to guide the learning objectives
students to guess which country is written on the paper.
and target setting for your class.
5. Variation: You can create a challenge for the students by
Can-do statements putting a country’s flag on the piece of paper instead of
By the end of this unit, students will be able to say: its name.
• I can understand people talking about the different Using Part A (track 05)
communities within their countries.
Before playing the recording:
• I can understand people talking about the culture of
1. Ask students to read the highlighted box about flora and
their country.
fauna vocabulary in New Zealand and Australia.
• I can hear and understand the relevance of modifying
language in English. 2. Clarify the vocabulary mentioned, or ask the students to
look it up in the mini-dictionary.
• I can recognize and accommodate non-standard
English and some accents. 3. Ask students what they know about New Zealand and
Australia, particularly about the wildlife and people in
Skill focus
each country. (Ask them to work in pairs and then feed
Listening for general understanding: back to the whole class.)
Part A 1 , Part B 1
4. This is quite a long audio with a difficult accent so it may
Listening for specific details and information:
be worth playing it in two separate parts: the flora and
Part A 2 3 4 , Part B 2 3
fauna (0.00-0.54), and the people (0.55-2.33). This will
Vocabulary give you the opportunity to clarify vocabulary as you go
Modifiers: quite, really, very along.
Communities: indigenous, immigrant, refugee, 5. After the first part of the audio, ask students to complete
asylum seeker questions 1 and 2 of Exercise 1. Then play the second part
Culture: variety, diversity, mindset, heritage, history of the audio and ask them to complete questions 3 and 4.
Grammar Using Part B (track 06)
Non-standard English
1. Ask students to read the true/false statements from
Exercise 1 in pairs, and predict what Stella might say.
2. Open the conversation to the whole group and discuss
CLASSROOM EXTENSION IDEAS the impression China is currently making on the world.

You can use some or all of these ideas to check and 3. Play the recording and get students to work individually
enhance your students’ understanding as they work their on their answers and then compare in pairs.
way through Unit 3 of Listening B1+ Intermediate in class. 4. Feed back with the whole class and discuss the way Stella
talks about both the importance of the history of China
Using Before you listen and its modernity. Ask students if they would describe
Use the Before you listen questions to initiate conversations their own country from these perspectives.
in pairs and then across the whole class. Focus on Stella’s use of non-standard English:
1. Put students into pairs and get them to alternate asking 1. Photocopy the Non-standard English worksheet below
each other the questions and answering them – the and cut the phrases up so that you have one set for each
length of this stage will depend how much students have pair of students.
to say about other countries they have visited.
2. Ask students to read the outlined box (page 14) about
2. Give each student the name of a different country written the non-standard aspects of Stella’s spoken English, and
on a piece of paper and tell them to keep it secret. discuss as a group the questions about difficulties in
3. Ask students to think how they would compare their understanding.
native country to the one they have been given (this may 3. Hand out a set of Stella’s phrases and get students to put
be about preconceptions as much as fact, of course.) them in the order Stella says them in the recording. Play
Ask them to think about food, climate, lifestyle, character the recording again if necessary.
of the people, etc.

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

4. Now these phrases have been highlighted, you can move 2. Put students into two groups and give each group one
on to Exercise 3. part of the transcript.
Put students in small groups and ask them to create a 3. Allow the groups ten minutes to think of five true or
tourism poster for their own country: false questions about their part of the transcript with
1. Bring in magazines with plenty of photos of the students’ which to challenge the other group.
native countries. 4. Groups can then exchange their questions and you can
2. Put students in small groups and ask them to think of: play the recording.
• what aspects of their country they would most like to
promote to the outside world,
MUSIC IN CLASS
• what adjectives best describe their country,
If you want music and songs in your classroom you could
• what pictures, images and colours would best
bring in the lyrics and recordings of various national
highlight their country’s qualities.
anthems of English-speaking countries which you can use in
3. Give each group a large piece of paper (A3) on which to
different ways:
design their posters, and allow them to add whatever
• Taking note of the rhyme scheme, hand out the lyrics
text they like to it.
with one or other of the rhymes deleted and get the
4. Monitor and allow students to talk about their designs. students to guess the missing rhyme. Play the anthem
5. For feedback, allow willing students to present their as feedback.
posters to the class. • Find pictures of the vocabulary items in the song, and
6. Get the class to make notes and ask questions at the end get students to identify them in the lyric sheet.
of each presentation. • Sometimes national anthems present a strange and
perhaps over-inflated image of a country which can
Using Further Listening
provide a good basis for discussion. Get students to talk
In Further listening at www.collinselt.com/listening, Hannah, about how they think different countries see themselves
originally from Australia, compares her new life in England in the world.
to her old one in Darwin.
The obvious anthems to pick are: Advance Australia Fair
1. Print out Hannah’s transcript, below, and cut it in (Australia); O Canada (Canada); God Defend New Zealand
two (0.00-0:54 and 0.55-2.09). Download the recording. (New Zealand); God Save the Queen (U.K); Star-Spangled
Banner (U.S.A)

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 English Readers
English for Life Listening (B1+ Intermediate)

PHOTOCOPIABLES
Non-standard English

It’s a very big difference in the cultures with the Western world.

I think there are things that you can show to them. It’s, you know, like shopping.

In the past, you can [could] hardly see any luxurious good(s).

But now it’s – all the brands are there.

It’s a city of variety and diversity as well, you know.

Then you can understand the Chinese history.

This is what modern China [Chinese] people, you know, enjoy.

Hannah’s transcript

(0.00-0:54)
Ok, well I was born in Australia … um … in Darwin, which is in the Northern Territory … um … and a very
different place to a lot of Australia. Um, that’s probably what people see as ‘Real Australia’, kind of like
‘Crocodile Dundee’ kind of territory. Um, so that’s where you get a lot of crocodiles and … um … where I was
born for example, in the river outside the hospital — from my mum’s hospital — hospital bed you could see
crocodiles in the river. That’s the kind of place … um … we’re talking about. Um, when I was two, I moved to
— right down to Southern Australia … um … to Adelaide … um … and that was a totally different thing again.
Um, that was much more rolling hills and … um… Australian suburbs. And then … um … when I was about ten,
I moved to Sydney — … um … so to Sydney city. So that was a totally different thing altogether again … um …
being in a city that’s right on the coast … um … and a beautiful city at that.

(0.55-2.09)
Um, when I was twelve … um … we moved to England. Um, both my parents are English and so they had spent
eighteen years by that point out of the country and decided that it was about time that they got to know
— that we got to know our cousins, our grandparents, all of our family back in England better. And although
we’d developed family — um … people who weren’t actually family to us by blood … um … but people who
we considered aunties and uncles in Australia … um … it wasn’t the same as having those people we saw kind
of ev — every second Christmas. And so we moved … um … and it was — everyone thinks that England and
Australia are kind of culturally the same … um … but actually it was very, very different they’re very different
people. Um, I think that the Australians are — are much more open, there — it’s a different — you get different
influxes there … um … from different countries as well. So there you’ve got … um … a lot of Koreans, you’ve
got a lot of Japanese … um … a lot of Japan — … um … who else have we got? We’ve got Greek and Chinese
… um … whereas when I came to England there was a lot of Afro-Americans and a lot of Indians, especially
where I live … um … and so it was so interesting to see the difference in that.

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