Week 9 Listening Homework (and an extra exercise)

Week 9

There are TWO listening exercises this week. One is homework for everyone; the other is an extra for people who want the extra practice (or grades). In any event, enjoy, and we'll see you on Monday.

The first assignment (for everyone) - is about an Australian man who invented a new texting symbol. The audio is on this page. Make sure that you click the audio file. You can watch the video if you wish, but that's not necessary.

1 Where was Mr. Mathis when he had the idea for this invention?

2 How many different designs did he try?

3 Why did Apple reject the app that Mr. Mathis proposed?

4 How many people have downloaded the app from his site?

5 Does he think there's a risk of ruining English by over-simplifying the language?

Extra Listening activity. You do not have to do this activity. But if you wish to, I'll give you extra points for the homework.

This is a story about odd birds in East London, United Kingdom. You can listen to the story here, from (20:40 - 27:11). I suggest that you download the file so that you can skip ahead to the story about the birds. The stories that open the podcast are either rude or quite sad.

1 Why is Lorraine trying to save the birds?

2 What do the birds look like?

3 What is the name of the government official who is trying to get rid of the birds?

4 What does Lorraine do when she sees that man trying to catch the birds?

5 How many of these birds are there in total? How many in Lorraine's neighbourhood?

6 How much money is the UK government spending to get rid of the birds?