Zapp! English Listening 3.10 - Rules & obligations

A police officer walks up to a cheeky sixteen-year-old and says he'll shut him up himself: "if you don't shut up I'll clip you". That's Niall, talking to Katie about what he thinks has gone wrong with discipline. Twenty minutes later the same conversation has moved on to jamón hanging in the open air, dogs in Spanish restaurants and people running down the street with explosives. This unit is about rules and obligations, and almost nobody in it agrees.

What you'll hear in this episode

The unit builds from short monologues to a four-way conversation.

In the first task, Tom and Amanda describe the rules they'd set if they had children. Tom's list is specific: no mobile phones until a certain age, television rationed to about an hour a day and preferably an educational documentary, limits on sweets, and "rules about how many portions of vegetables they had to eat each day". Amanda takes the opposite line — too many rules can be "a little repressive", and she'd rather "live as the example". Eleven-year-olds with phones pressed to their ears strike her as "bizarre".

Then Katie sits down with Niall, who wants a more traditional upbringing: respect for police officers, a smack when it's deserved, homework before the computer, and age certificates on games taken seriously. He draws a firm line at school punishment — "it's not up to a teacher to discipline a child, it's up to a parent" — and is surprisingly relaxed about teenage relationships.

The last conversation adds Alec, and Katie asks the obvious question: do any of you actually follow rules? Amanda compares herself to a puppy locked in a cage that "went wild" once it got out, and admits she's "about half way down the list" of rules to break. Katie confesses she won't cross at a red light even with no traffic; Tom's reply is "That drives me mad." Talk turns to Las Fallas, the Corre Foc, the Castellers and suing a council over a loose paving stone.

Quick facts

What you'll learn

The practical goal is obligation and permission language heard at natural speed, in the forms people really use. Notice how often allow does the work: I wouldn't allow my children to do, parents aren't allowed to discipline their children, they wouldn't be allowed to play a game with an eighteen certificate on it. Notice too how rules get softened before they're stated — "It would depend on the circumstances", it'd depend on their age, I think a young child should have a definite bedtime.

The first task gives you two monologues, which are easier to follow because nobody interrupts. The third gives you the harder thing: four people finishing each other's sentences, agreeing with "Mmm" and "Yeah, totally", and jumping in with short reactions like "How is it allowed?" and "It would be banned." Learning to hear where one speaker hands over to another is a real skill, and this recording is a good place to practise it.

You'll also hear the conditional used to imagine a life nobody in the room has yet: If I have children, I would…, if you had kids would you smack them? It's a pattern worth stealing for your own speaking.

Vocabulary from the glossary

• upbringing (noun) – your education, how your parents taught you to be. Niall says he'd be very traditional with it.
• hindered (past participle) – made more difficult. Niall's complaint about police officers and European directives.
• cheeky (adjective) – naughty, saying things that are a bit rude.
• clip (verb) – an informal word for a quick hit around the head.
• mouthing off / gobbing off (phrasal verbs, slang) – being cheeky, behaving badly because of what you say, rude.
• discipline (verb) – to give rules and punish someone if they break them.
• cane (noun) – a long thin stick used to hit children in schools.
• unwind (verb) – relax. Niall's argument for letting children have screen time.
• went wild (phrase) – went crazy.
• bare feet – with nothing on. Amanda's example of what a restaurant won't allow.
• sue (verb) – go to court to make somebody pay you because they did something illegal to you.

In the workbook

The workbook opens by checking one essential word — strict — then takes you through all three listening tasks with the questions and answers. Task 1 asks who'd be the stricter parent; Task 2 is a topic-spotting task (police, computer games, money, sex, alcohol — three yes, two no); Task 3 is true or false, including whether the speakers think Spain has more rules than England.

The Extra Materials add seven detail questions across the three recordings, with answers, so you can go back and check exactly why you missed one. There's also a getting-the-meaning-from-context exercise built on five expressions lifted straight out of the audio — get up to, smack, goody-two-shoes, nanny state and happy go lucky — matched to definitions, plus the full glossary and complete transcripts of every conversation.

The audio is free. The workbook comes with the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, which includes the workbooks for every episode across all our courses.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversations are unscripted — real people talking, with hesitations, overlaps and one bleeped word. The teaching sections that set up each task and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

What level is this episode?

Level 3, from the Listening 3 pack. You'll need to cope with fast, overlapping speech and British slang.

Do I need the workbook to use the audio?

No. The 17-minute recording works on its own, with tasks and answers built in. The workbook adds the transcripts, the extra questions and the vocabulary exercises.

What language does it teach?

Obligation and permission — allow, let, have to, should — plus conditionals for talking about imagined situations.

How much is the pack?

€39 for the all-in-one pack, which covers the workbooks for every episode.

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