Talking About Globalisation: English Vocabulary 3.9

Katie opens by calling globalisation "bit of a hot topic", and Alec answers with "the huge umbrella term of globalisation" — a sigh, a pause, and then a careful list of positives and negatives. That hesitation is the point. This is what fluent speakers actually sound like when they are thinking about a big subject in real time, and it is very different from the tidy paragraphs in a textbook. Fifteen words for talking about globalisation come out of two unscripted conversations, and you practise saying all of them.

What you'll hear in this episode

There are two conversations. In the first, Katie asks Alec whether he is for globalisation or against it. He talks about the fair trade movement "picking up pace", and about shoppers learning to look for the logo in supermarkets and starting to understand "what it means and why it's important". Katie brings up where the labour has come from, and notes that a country of manufacture does not automatically mean a workforce has been exploited — though, as she puts it, "you do hear nightmare stories don't you?" Alec's best moment is his impression of the excuse people make to themselves: "All I do is buy coffee once a month." They move on to minimum wage, restrictions, and whether capitalism helps or forgets poorer countries.

In the second conversation, Tom asks Katie about globalisation and poverty. She uses outsourced customer service work in India as an example — and hunts for the phrase mid-sentence: "What do you call that, you know, like a...phone stuff?" Tom argues that outsourcing just moves the gap between rich and poor inside a country instead of closing it. Katie raises companies that "put profit first", tries not to name any, and Tom names them anyway. She ends honestly: "I can never make my mind up about this." Tom's verdict is "we're heading to destruction"; Katie laughs and says "Hope not!"

Quick facts

Episode	3.9 — Globalisation
Pack	Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3
Level	3
Duration	15 minutes 36 seconds
Audio	Free to download
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack (€39)

What you'll learn

The teaching is split in two, so you hear each set of words in conversation first and then work on them. Task 1 covers fair trade, to exploit, labour, consumers, to invest, capitalism, benefits and restrictions. Task 2 covers impact, aid, poverty, outsourcing, wages, brands and profit. Each word is checked with a definition question, then repeated after a beep, then put into a full example sentence — "Are there any trade restrictions between those two countries?", "They made millions of dollars of profit."

The pronunciation work is specific rather than general. You are told where the stress falls: on the second syllable in to invest, on the first in benefits, impact and outsourcing. You listen to the ending /mənt/ in investment and the /dʒɪz/ at the end of wages. The workbook then makes you decide whether pairs of underlined sounds match: profit and poverty share /ɒ/, labour and aid share /eɪ/, but exploit /ɔɪ/ and outsourcing /ɔː/ do not — a distinction that catches out a lot of learners.

There is a listening benefit too. Katie and Tom disagree politely for several minutes, so you can hear how English speakers soften a contradiction with "well", "I mean" and "I suppose" before they get to the disagreement itself.

Vocabulary from this episode

fair trade /feətreɪd/ — the idea that workers in poorer countries should be paid a fair amount of money for their goods and services. Alec calls it "the burgeoning fair trade movement".
to exploit /ɪksplɔɪt/ — to treat someone badly or unfairly, to use someone so that you can get a better situation for yourself. Used in the audio as "Some factories exploit the workers."
labour /leɪbər/ — the people who work in a company or country. Katie asks "where the labour's come from".
outsourcing /aʊtsɔːsɪŋ/ — using workers from outside the company to do some work for you, sometimes from another country. Central to the India discussion.
wages /weɪdʒɪz/ — the money that you are paid for work, usually by the hour or day, as opposed to a yearly salary.
profit /prɒfɪt/ — the money that is kept from doing business after expenses like tax and wages have been paid.
aid /eɪd/ — money or goods given to an organisation or country that needs help.

What's in the workbook

The workbook for unit 9 gives you the two conversations in full transcript, so every hesitation and false start is there in writing when you want to check what you heard. It also contains the complete fifteen-word glossary with phonetic transcriptions, plus three practice sections. Practice 1 is a matching task: six definitions against six words, including "The noun of the state of having little or no money." Practice 2 is a gap-fill paragraph about globalisation where you supply benefits, impact, profits, exploited, wages, labour and fair trade from first letters only. Practice 3 is the pronunciation comparison task, deciding whether five pairs of underlined sounds are the same or different. Answers to all three are included at the back.

This workbook comes with the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, which collects the workbooks for every episode alongside the free audio.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversations are not. Katie, Alec and Tom are talking freely, which is why you get half-finished sentences and searches for words. 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 3, from the Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3 pack.

How long does it take?

The audio runs 15 minutes 36 seconds. The three practice sections in the workbook add roughly the same again.

Do I need the workbook to follow along?

No — the audio teaches all fifteen words on its own. The workbook is where you read the transcript, check the phonetics and test whether the words stuck.

What does the complete course include?

The workbooks for every Zapp! English episode in one pack, for €39. The audio stays free.

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