Talking About Jobs and Roles: English Listening 2.17

Ask an English speaker whether they'd like to be a captain and you find out very quickly whether they know what a captain does. One of our speakers admits, cheerfully, "I have no idea what captains do or should do", adding "I don't believe I've ever met one". Another pictures a cruise ship first, then changes her mind and thinks of a netball team. Four ordinary words — owner, professional, leader, captain — turn into a conversation about money, sleep and worry.

What you'll hear in this episode

We asked people which kinds of people they have been or would like to be: a performer, a captain, a patient or a politician. Nicholas talks about performing as a child, including a part as one of the dancing pirates in Peter Pan, and about a grandfather's verdict afterwards — "I was a terrible dancer". He is much more serious about politics: "I'm very passionate about change", he says, because to really change something you have to be on the political side of it.

Ronny takes the opposite line. Performing, in his view, needs a certain ego he doesn't have, and being a politician is "absolutely not" an option: "that takes about the same ego as a performer", he says, "but maybe with less ethics".

Tom then compares pairs of jobs. A captain and an employer? "they're both...kind of bosses, they're in charge of people". A politician and a criminal? He notes that "sometimes politicians end up in prison, because they have...been corrupt", and that criminals are often former politicians.

The longest conversation is between Katie and Hannah, who has just come home from work and says she is "Very tired indeed." They work through owner, professional, leader and captain. Hannah would love to be a professional windsurfer; she decides she'd make a bad property owner — "So I'd be a terrible owner" — and would rather "own a dog". Neither of them wants to lead anything. Asked which she'd choose, Katie answers "probably none of them".

Quick facts

Episode	2.17
Pack	Listening 2
Level	2
Duration	15 minutes 38 seconds
Topic	Professions and kinds of people
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack (€39)

What you'll learn

The useful thing about these four words is how general they are, and both speakers say so out loud: "Wow. OK, they are quite general." You'll hear how English speakers narrow a vague word down in real time — owner becomes an owner of a restaurant, then of property, then of a dog; captain moves from a ship to a rugby, football, netball or handball team. That is a skill you can copy directly when you're asked an open question and need thinking time.

You'll also hear plenty of hedging: kind of, to some extent, I suppose, I was thinking more of.... These are the words that make an opinion sound reasonable rather than absolute, and they're easy to miss because they're unstressed.

There's also a short teaching step around one key word. Before the main conversation we check responsibility — what you have when it's your job to make sure something is done, and done correctly — and then you hear it used again and again, including Hannah's summary of the word leader: "the word leader to me...says, responsibility responsibility". Listen for how she and Katie build the same argument in different words: too much stress, too much worry, "Too many sleepless nights."

Vocabulary from the workbook

passionate (adjective) – cares a lot about something, it is very important to them. Nicholas uses it twice about change and about people.
ego (noun) – what you think about yourself and how important you think you are. Ronny's reason for not wanting a stage.
category (noun) – a group of things or people that are the same or similar in some way. Ronny puts being a patient into one.
ethics (noun) – the rules people give themselves to decide what is right or wrong, fair or unfair. The punchline of Ronny's joke about politicians.
corrupt (adjective) – does things that are dishonest so that they can get more money or power. From Tom on politicians and prison.
former (adjective) – was before now, was, in the past. Tom on criminals and politicians.

What's in the workbook

The workbook takes you through the same three listening tasks you hear in the audio, each with the question set out before you listen and an answer key afterwards, so you can check what you understood without guessing. There's the vocabulary check on responsibility that comes before the main conversation, and a short true or false set in the Extra Materials — for example, whether Ronny liked being a patient, and whether Hannah is a professional windsurfer — with answers and brief explanations.

There's also a guessing from context exercise built from four real lines from the recording. You look at the words in bold, decide whether they're nouns, verbs, adjectives or phrases, and match them to definitions: in charge of, according to, renovating and clued up. The glossary above is included, and so is the full transcript, so anything you couldn't catch by ear you can read.

This workbook comes with every other one in the Listening 2 pack, and with the rest of the Zapp! English audio courses, in the all-in-one pack for €39.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Do I need the workbook to follow the audio?

No. The audio works on its own, including the answers. The workbook helps if you want to read the transcript, do the extra exercises and check the vocabulary definitions.

Are these conversations scripted?

The conversations are unscripted — real people answering our questions, with the hesitations and self-corrections that come with that. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

What level is this episode?

Level 2, and it runs 15 minutes 38 seconds.

What should I listen for the second time?

How the speakers reinterpret a general word. Notice how captain changes meaning mid-conversation once sport comes up, and how owner shifts from restaurants to houses to a dog.

Which language can I use straight away?

The hedges. "kind of", "to some extent" and "I was thinking more of" let you answer a broad question honestly while you decide what you actually think.

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