ENGLISH LISTENING MATERIALS

Topic : Song
Type/Title : Pop/ I don’t wanna talk about it (Rod Stewart)
Exercise : 1. Finding out the missing verbs and nouns
2. Understanding the topic of the song

A sample of exercises:

Listen to the song and complete the lyrics!

I can ___1___ by your ___2___ that you've

probably been crying forever
And the stars in the sky don't ___3___
nothing to you they're a mirror

I don't wanna talk about it

How you ___4___ my heart
If I stay here just a little bit longer
If I ___5___ here won't you ___6___ to my heart
Oh oh my heart

If I ___7___ all alone will the shadows

hide the colours of my ___8___
blue for tears, black for the ___9___
fears the stars in the ___10___
don't mean nothing to you they're a mirror

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 ENGLISH LISTENING MATERIALS

Topic : Confirming a hotel booking

Type : Dialogues / Conversation
Exercise : 1. Completing sentences with word or phrase
2. Finding out the meaning of certain words/phrases in Indonesian
3. Finding out the main topic
4. Answering and finding specific information related with the dialogues

A sample of exercises:

Fill in the blanks with the correct word or phrase based on the CD you have heard !
Situation : a telephone conversation between a hotel receptionist and a person trying to
make a booking. The line is bad but the receptionist has the telephone skills to
deal with this problem.

Hello and welcome to this “Learn English” professional recording, brought to you by the British
Council. To find out more and to access language activities and audio scripts, visit our Learn
English website at www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish

CONFIRMING A HOTEL BOOKING

Receptionist : ___1___ , Orion Hotel, how may I help you?
Customer : I’m ringing to confirm a booking I made a week ago. I was expecting an email
but I haven’t received anything.

Receptionist : ___2___ the line is rather bad, would you mind repeating that, please?
Customer : Yes, I made a reservation on your website under the name of Coutts. George
Coutts.
Receptionist : Could you spell your surname for me, ___3___?
Customer : Yes, that’s C-O-U-T-T-S
Receptionist : And when was the reservation for?
Customer : July 23rd to the 29th
Receptionist : Sorry, did you say the ___4___?
Customer : No, the 23rd

Receptionist : Let me just check if we have your details on the system. Ah… yes, here we are.
Customer : I put down one double and one single room, but I wonder if I could change
that.
Receptionist : I’m terribly sorry I didn’t quite catch that. ___5___ speaking up a little?

Customer : Yes, I wanted to change the number of rooms. Is it possible to have two
doubles instead of a single and a double?
Receptionist : Let’s see…oh hold on a moment. I’ve got someone on the other line. (Speaks to
other customer) yeah, yeah…would you mind if I rang you back. I’m just dealing
with a reservation. ___6___.

Customer : Sorry?
Receptionist : Yes, sorry about that Mr. Coutts, I’m just getting your booking details up now.
Yes, we do have another double available for those nights. Was there anything
else?

Customer : Well, I wanted to know if you did vegetarian food for the evening meal. It
wasn’t clear from the website.

Receptionist : Yes, we do, but by prior arrangement. But now you’ve requested it, I’ll put that
down in the booking. ___7___ people was that for?

Customer : Just myself

Receptionist : ___8___. Anything else?

Customer : Well, we’ve got a very early return flight on the 30 th, so we’ll need an alarm call
at about 5.30, I should think.

Receptionist : No problem sir, I’ll arrange that now. Was that all?
Customer : ___9___.

Receptionist : So you’d like two double rooms for the nights of 23 rd to the 29th July inclusive,
vegetarian provision for one and an early morning call on your departure. Is
that correct?

Customer : That’s right

Receptionist : If we ___10___ with anything else, just give us a ring. We look forward to
seeing you in July.

ENGLISH LISTENING MATERIALS

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Topic : Studying in the United Kingdom (UK)

Type : Story / Narrative text
Exercise : 1. Understanding the listening audio about Studying in the UK
2. Finding out specific information related with the text

Sample of exercise:
Listen to the audio carefully and then answer the following questions!

1. Where is Lin from?

2. What does Lin think about studying in the United Kingdom?
3. Where is Tomas from?
4. Is the following statement true or false?
Syed came from Manchester. (T/F)
5. Is the following statement true or false?
Syed didn’t like the way of teaching on the course. (T/F)

ENGLISH LISTENING MATERIALS

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Topic : Remembering Snow

Type : Story / Poetry
Exercise : 1. Finding out specific information related with the text
2. Completing the missing words/phrases

Samples of exercise:
Task 1 (don’t give the script to the students)
Listen to the story carefully and then answer the following questions!

1. What do you think about snow?

2. What does the speaker think about good poetry?
3. Where was Brian Patten born?
4. When was Brian Patten born?
5. Brian Patten has written lots of poems both for ….. and for …..

Source: http://www.listen-to-english.com/index.php?id=502

Task 2
Listen to the story carefully and complete the following poem!

It is very cold here in England, and there is lots of snow on the ground. What do you think about
snow? Yes, snow can be cold and wet and miserable. But it can also change familiar things – our
houses and gardens, our streets and our cities – into something strange and new and beautiful.

Good poetry is like snow – it too can change familiar things into something strange and new
and beautiful. So I looked for a poem about snow to read you, and I have found one by a poet
called Brian Patten.
 Brian Patten was born in Liverpool in 1946, which means that he is nearly as old
as I am! In the 1960s, he was one of a group of young poets from Liverpool
whose poems became very popular and widely read. It is easy to understand
why – the poems are direct, simple and often funny. Brian Patten is today one of
Britain’s leading poets, and he has written lots of poems both for adults and for
children. There are links to some of his poems, and to more information, on the
website. I sent him an e-mail, to say that I would like to use this poem in a podcast, and he has
kindly agreed that I can. So here it is, Remembering Snow.

I did not …(1)… last night.

The falling snow was beautiful and white.
I dressed, sneaked down the stairs
And opened wide the …(2)…
I had not seen such snow before.
Our grubby little street had gone.
The world was brand-new, and …(3)…
There was a pureness in the air.
I felt such peace.
Watching every flake
I felt more and more awake.
I thought I had learned all there was to know
About the trillion million different kinds
Of swirling frosty flakes of snow.
That was not so.
I did not …(4)… how vividly it lit
The world with such a peaceful glow.
Upstairs my mother slept.
I could not drag myself away from that sight
To call her down and have her share
The mute miracle of the snow.
It seemed to fall for me alone.
…(5)… our grubby little street had grown!

Good bye!

ENGLISH LISTENING MATERIALS

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The Sick Child

Kind : Poem, Source : www.britishcouncil.org

1. Script :
The Sick Child
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Child: O mother, lay your hand on my brow!

O mother, mother, where am I now?

Why is the room so gaunt and great?
Why am I lying awake so late?

Mother: Fear not at all: the night is still.

Nothing is here that means you ill.

Nothing but lamps the whole town through,
And never a child awake but you.

Child: Mother, mother, speak low in my ear,

Some of the things are so great and near,
Some are so small and far away,
I have a fear that I cannot say
What have I done, and what do I fear,
And why are you crying, mother dear?

Mother: Out in the city, sounds begin

Thank the kind God, the carts come in!

An hour or two more and God is so kind,
The day shall be blue in the windowblind,
Then shall my child go sweetly asleep,
And dream of the birds and the hills of sheep.

Exercise:

Decide if each of the following 8 statements about the poem is True or False:

The child doesn't know where s/he is.

The child thinks the room seems bigger than usual.

There is a storm that night.
All the children in the town are awake.
The child knows what s/he is afraid of.
The child's mother is very upset.
The mother believes the child will sleep during the day.
The mother thinks the child will have nightmares.
 ENGLISH LISTENING
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Topic : Astronomy
Title : New Stars Discovered in the Sky
Genre : Report/News
Source : www.bbclearningenglish.com
Re-upload by www.haarrr.wordpress.com; for Indonesian students of English (SMP/SMA)

Background:
Scientists have discovered there are three times more stars in the sky than they had thought.
New research in the "Nature" journal says this could mean there are people living on another
planet like the earth. Pallab Ghosh reports:
***

(1). Transcript:

Words in the News from “bbclearningenglish.com”

Astronomers have assumed that the composition of all galaxies is the same as our own. But
using a new, more powerful instrument on the Keck telescope in Hawaii, researchers have
discovered that older galaxies contain twenty times more small dim stars, called
‘red dwarves’, than younger galaxies such as our own. Doctor Marek Kukula of the Royal
Greenwich Observatory describes what the view from a planet in an older galaxy might
be like.

"When one of these galaxies that we now know contain lots and lots of small red stars, it may
well be true that the night sky is dotted with these small, faint red stars glowing like embers
and that might produce a very pretty effect."

According to Professor Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University, the discovery also increases the
estimate of the number of planets in the universe, and therefore makes it even more likely that
there's life somewhere else in the cosmos.

"There's been particular attention recently to these red dwarf stars. In one galaxy
there's about a trillion of these stars and there's hundreds of billions of these galaxies.
Even if the planet is quite close to the star, you could have liquid water on the planet,
because the star is not as bright as the sun and so a planet can be a lot closer and still be
kind of balmy, rather than scorching hot."

The discovery that there are many more stars means that our universe is a much
brighter, more crowded place than we previously thought.
Pallab Ghosh, BBC News

(2). Sample of Exercise:

Listen to the audio and fill in the blanks with words/phrases that you’ve heard!

Words in the News from “bbclearningenglish.com”

…(1)… have assumed that the composition of all galaxies is the same as our own. But using a
new, more powerful instrument on the Keck telescope in Hawaii, researchers have discovered
that older galaxies contain twenty times more small dim stars, called ‘red dwarves’,
than younger …(2)… such as our own. Doctor Marek Kukula of the Royal Greenwich
Observatory describes what the view from a …(3)… in an older galaxy might be like.

"When one of these galaxies that we now know …(4)… lots and lots of small red stars, it may
well be true that the night sky is dotted with these small, faint …(5)… glowing like embers and
that might produce a very pretty effect."

…(6)… Professor Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University, the discovery also increases the estimate
of the number of planets in the …(7)…, and therefore makes it even more likely that there's life
somewhere else in the cosmos.

"There's been particular attention …(8)… to these red dwarf stars. In one galaxy there's
about a trillion of these stars and there's hundreds of billions of these galaxies. Even if
the planet is quite close to the star, you could have liquid water on the planet, …(9)… is
not as bright as the sun and so a planet can be a lot closer and still be kind of balmy,
rather than scorching hot."

The discovery that …(10)… stars means that our universe is a much brighter, more
crowded place than we previously thought.
Pallab Ghosh, BBC News

(3). Vocabulary and Definitions:

astronomers : people who study the stars and outer space

composition : what something is made of
powerful instrument : a very effective piece of equipment that is attached to the telescope
galaxies : groups of millions or billions of stars in space
dotted with : scattered with
glowing like embers : the stars give off light so that they look like lit wood or coal after the fire
has died down
the cosmos : space, where planets and stars other than earth are found
balmy : pleasantly mild weather
scorching hot : hot enough to burn different forms of life
universe : space, and all the planets and stars in it, including earth

A conversation about a cultural heritage site.

Optional exercise Listen to the conversation and decide if these statements are T (true) or F
(false).

1. The archaeological excavation was in Western Europe.

2. Lynn was working there for more than a month.
3. A university paid for her to go there.
4. She felt positive about the work experience.
5. She found a small statue.
6. The excavation will fundamentally change the area. (Answers below)

David: Hi Lynn how’s it going?

Lynn: Not so bad.
David: How was your summer? Didn’t you go on some field trip in Eastern Europe or
something?
Lynn: That’s right. Six weeks on my hands and knees digging for treasure
David: Did you find any?
Lynn: Not much. Lots of pottery fragments, some bones, a few tools.
David: I hope you got paid for it.
Lynn: You must be joking! It was run by the local university research group. They don’t have any
money. You make your
way there and pay for your own accommodation and meals.
David: So, you were cheap labour for the professors, then?
Lynn: Don’t be so cynical! No, they were really helpful. I learnt a lot
David: Oh yeah…like what?
Lynn: Well, first there was the mapping of the site. They used digital photography and GIS,
which I hadn’t done before.
Then there’s the excavation itself, scraping away for hours, which can get a bit tedious. And it
all has to be recorded the
location and description of every artefact is put into a database.
David: Don’t you have to be careful when you’re excavating? I’d be afraid of breaking
something priceless.
Lynn: Oh, sure. You have to move the earth away very slowly with a trowel, sometimes even a
toothbrush! But everything
you find has a story to tell. Pollen samples tell you about forest clearance and crop cultivation,
animal teeth and bones
showed they kept livestock. Looking at stone axes can tell you what sort of animals they
hunted. The best part of the dig was
the midden.
David: What’s that?
Lynn: It’s where they dumped domestic waste. It contains all sorts of treasures. The highlight
for me was finding a small clay
figure. Imagine holding something in your hand that was made by a human being six thousand
years ago!
David: So have you expanded the sum of human knowledge?
Lynn: I think so. The site is giving them a lot of new information about that part of the Black Sea
coast in Neolithic times.
And it’ll be a big tourist attraction when they open it up to the public in a couple of years.
They’ve got plans to get some
international funding and make it into an archaeological park, but they’ll still preserve the
landscape and the character of the
place.
David: Will you get your name in the brochure?
Lynn: You never know!

Listen to different people commenting on James Lovelock's current views on nuclear energy.
Optional exercise (The answers are at the bottom of the page).
Listen and decide who makes these points: Michael, Teresa, Kevin, Raymond, Kerry.
Which person thinks...
1. that a lot of scientists don’t agree with Lovelock?
2. that Lovelock has made a turnaround?
3. that Lovelock now agrees with the government?
4. that Lovelock’s ideas are not really that important?
5. that nuclear power is not safe?
6. that people are impatient?