Zapp! English Colloquial Audio Podcast 3.22 - News
Taught by Katie Wood — Cambridge CELTA · Cambridge DELTA · Cambridge-accredited Teacher Trainer
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
Katie asks Tom what you call a journalist who writes low-quality articles for a low-quality paper. He gets it first time: a hack. Then she asks for the collective word for those papers, and things slow down — he tries "The tabloids?", then admits "I keep thinking of Red Tops but I think that's from another country…" before landing on the answer. That guessing rhythm runs through the whole episode, and it's what makes the expressions stick.
What you'll hear in this episode
This is a guessing game, not a lecture. Katie defines an expression, Tom has to produce it, and you get a few seconds to try before he does. The first half stays inside the newspaper: a hack, the gutter press, a rag, the funnies and an agony aunt. Katie ties them together neatly — "a hack might write for a rag, and a rag is part of the gutter press".
Some answers come instantly. Others don't. When Katie asks for the word for the cartoon section, Tom simply says "No idea!" When she prompts him towards rag with a long rolled Rrrrrrr, he says "Can't remember", then: "Rag! I was thinking something like that and just couldn't remember."
The second half moves to news and information more generally: forgetting things that go in one ear and out the other, burying your head in the sand, no news is good news, keeping or losing track of something, and not having the foggiest. One speaker admits ignoring financial crisis news because "there's so much of it". Along the way Tom guesses "Keep abreast of the news?" — after first asking "Is this to do with breasts?" — and, offered the chance to complete I haven't got a…, says "I was going to swear there, but I won't!" There's a short detour into agony aunts, which neither of them would write to: "why do you want to publish something so personal in…in a national newspaper?"
Quick facts
| Episode | 3.22 — News |
| Pack | Colloquial 3 |
| Level | 3 |
| Duration | 19 minutes 11 seconds |
| Speakers | Katie and Tom |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack (€39) |
What you'll learn
The obvious gain is ten colloquial expressions you'll meet constantly in British English but rarely in a textbook. The less obvious gain is hearing how a native speaker searches for a word he half-knows. Tom's wrong guesses are useful data: tabloids and Red Tops are real words in the right area but not the answer Katie wants, and keep abreast of is genuinely close in meaning to keep track of — Katie confirms it, then notes it isn't as colloquial. That distinction between correct and idiomatic is hard to teach in the abstract.
You'll also pick up why the expressions mean what they mean, because Katie keeps stopping to explain the image: a gutter is where dirty water collects, so the gutter press is where the dirty stories end up; an agony aunt helps you because "you're in pain, you're suffering"; and Tom explains foggiest himself — fog is "when the cloud is lying very close to the ground", so you can't see, so you have no idea.
After each conversation there's a Meaning and Pronunciation section: a definition, a pause, the answer, then a full example sentence to repeat after the beep, such as "I always read the funnies on a Sunday morning."
The expressions, with the workbook definitions
- a hack – a journalist who is not very professional, and who writes low quality articles.
- the gutter press – the groups of newspapers that are low quality and interested in shocking and celebrity news.
- a rag – a bad quality newspaper.
- the funnies – the cartoon section of a newspaper.
- an agony aunt / uncle – someone in a newspaper / on a TV programme, you can ask for advice.
- goes in one ear and out the other – information is immediately forgotten.
- no news is good news – not getting any information doesn't mean the news will be bad.
- to bury your head in the sand – to ignore a problem, to refuse to pay any attention to it, to pretend it isn't happening.
- to not have a clue / the foggiest – to have no idea, to not have any information about something.
- to keep track of / lose track of something – to follow, to watch how a situation develops / to no longer know what is happening about a situation or person.
What's in the workbook
The 19-page unit contains the full transcript of both conversations, so every hesitation and false start above is there in writing when you want to check what you heard. The glossary grades each expression for informality on a 1–3 scale — all ten items in this unit are level 1, meaning you can use them with most people in most situations, unlike the level 3 entries we warn you not to try on your mother-in-law.
Then there are two practice exercises with a full answer key. Exercise 1 is gap-fill: "I never read the news. I haven't got the ______ what's going on in the world." Exercise 2 is error correction, and the mistakes are the ones learners genuinely make — "That newspaper is full of hackers", "Don't bury your head in the ground", "I lose tracks of time if I don't wear a watch". Getting those wrong once is the fastest way to remember them.
This workbook comes with the Zapp! English all-in-one pack: every unit, every glossary, every exercise and answer key, for €39.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Frequently asked questions
Is the audio scripted?
The conversations between Katie and Tom are unscripted — that's why Tom forgets rag, guesses Red Tops and answers "No idea!" The teaching sections that define the expressions and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
What level is this episode?
Level 3, from the Colloquial 3 pack. You'll cope best if you already understand journalist, press and tabloid, since the unit builds the slang on top of that vocabulary.
Do I need the workbook to follow the audio?
No — the audio works alone, and the English conversations are followed by pronunciation drills. The workbook adds the transcript, glossary and exercises, which is where the expressions move from recognised to usable.
Are these expressions rude?
All ten are marked level 1 in the glossary: informal but safe. The only rude version is the one Tom deliberately avoids when completing I haven't got a… — he keeps it as "I haven't got a clue".
How long is the episode?
19 minutes 11 seconds, covering two conversations and two pronunciation sections.
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