Zapp! English Listening 2.13 - Around the Home
Taught by Tom Wilkinson — Cambridge CELTA
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
One of the speakers in this episode once lived in a converted chicken coup in the woods in Maryland: twenty feet long, split down the middle with a wall, half studio and half bedroom, with a roof so low that his head would graze it while he worked. In the winter it was, in his words, "deathly cold". That's the kind of answer you get when you ask people about houses instead of asking them about grammar.
What you'll hear in this episode
We start with dream houses. Sandra describes a dream house that has kept shrinking over the years — "a dream house would be a little cabin in the woods", with a big front porch for watching the sunsets and "just the necessities that you need". Ronny wants something contemporary with a country feel, natural materials, no plastic and no stainless steel: "clean line...is my motto."
Then Katie sits down with Greg to compare houses around the world. Four countries come up: Thailand, England, California in the USA, and Japan. They talk about concrete versus wooden frames versus brick, about wooden houses up on stilts that squeak when you walk on them, about earthquakes, and about who takes their shoes off where. Greg explains why small Japanese rooms feel larger — "the space is maximised, it's optimised" — because the bed gets rolled up and put in the cupboard every morning, while in England you fit in all the furniture you possibly can.
The last conversation is about the worst house you've ever lived in, and it turns competitive. Stuart has the chicken coup. Sybil counters with a farmhouse in Canada so big that only the front half could be heated, two wood burning stoves, and no insulation. One of the hosts joins in with a bathroom window that would not shut, a snow drift indoors and a toilet that froze. Sybil's reply: "You were lucky you had a toilet!" Katie concedes: "OK, you two win."
Quick facts
| Episode | 2.13 – Around the Home |
| Pack | Listening 2 |
| Level | 2 |
| Duration | 16 minutes 39 seconds |
| Speakers | Six |
| Accents | American, Canadian and British |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack (€39) |
What you'll learn
The first task is a comparison task: you listen to two people describe a dream house and decide whose would be smaller. Neither of them wants a big one, so you can't just listen for the word "small" — you have to follow the detail, and Sandra gets down to "maybe one room inside or maybe with a little bedroom".
The second task asks you to identify which countries are discussed, which trains you to pull place names and country contrasts out of fast, overlapping conversation. The extra questions then push further: name one thing said about houses in each of Thailand, England, California and Japan.
There's also a lot of natural house and home vocabulary here in real use rather than in a list: stilts, tatami, decks and patios, open plan, insulation, snow drifts. And you'll hear how speakers hedge and correct themselves mid-sentence — "I'd say, yes it depends on the...on the people" — which is exactly what makes unscripted English harder than coursebook audio, and exactly what you need practice with.
Vocabulary from the workbook
The glossary covers three words from the third conversation, where a low-roofed building is described from the inside:
- rear (adjective) – at the back
- wood burning stove (noun) – a kind of cooker or fire, you burn wood in it for heat
- sculptor (noun) – an artist who makes things by making shapes in wood, metal or stone
Before that conversation we also pre-teach two words you'll need: converted, meaning changed into something different, and coup, the word for a chicken house.
What's in the workbook
The workbook is part of the all-in-one pack at €39, and it turns 16 minutes of audio into a full lesson. You get the introduction questions, all three listening tasks with the answers explained, and the complete transcript of every conversation, so you can go back and see exactly which words you missed.
The Extra Materials section adds more listening questions: whether Sandra owns her house or rents, whether Ronny prefers the country or the city, one fact about houses in each of the four countries, and two questions on the third conversation. Answers are given at the end, with model answers that list several possibilities for the country question.
There's also a vocabulary exercise on getting meaning from context. You look at three words in bold in their original lines — cabin, sturdy and breeze — decide whether each is a noun, verb, adjective or phrase, then match them to definitions. That's a skill, not just a word list: guessing sensibly instead of stopping every time you hear something unfamiliar.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Is the audio scripted?
The conversations are completely unscripted — real people, real hesitations, real interrupting. The teaching sections that set up each task and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
What level is this episode?
It's Level 2, from the Listening 2 pack. The tasks ask for one clear piece of information at a time, so you don't need to understand every word to get them right.
Which accents will I hear?
There are six speakers and three accents in this episode: American, Canadian and British.
Can I use it without the workbook?
Yes — the audio is free and the tasks and answers are all spoken. The workbook adds the transcript, the extra questions and the vocabulary work, which is where most of the learning happens on a second pass.
How do I get the workbook?
It comes with the Zapp! English all-in-one pack at €39, which includes the workbooks for every episode.
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